


Rigid

by Gem_Gem



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Attempt at humour, Awkward Sexual Situations, Drugged Sherlock, Dry Humping, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Implied Slash, John gives a helping hand, Kissing, M/M, Male Slash, Mild Sexual Content, Mildly Dubious Consent, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Slash, Prostate Massage, Public Hand Jobs, Sherlock Holmes Loves John Watson, Virgin Sherlock, a little spanking, confusing feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:31:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 67,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gem_Gem/pseuds/Gem_Gem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is drugged with Viagra...funniness and hand jobs ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sildenafil

**Author's Note:**

> ...I don't know what this is, but it was really fun to write. If you lovely people like it, there is more where this came from!

John frowned at Sally as she giggled almost uncontrollably into her hand for the fifth time that night, thinking that no one could see the bouncing of her shoulders and the shaking of her hair, but John watched her as she moved to Anderson to whisper in his ear, glancing briefly over at Sherlock as she did so. Anderson smirked and John narrowed his eyes, looking at Sherlock in concern to find his face a little flushed as he crouched over the victims body, squinting and then rubbing and squeezing his eyes shut repeatedly with annoyance.

“You okay, Sherlock?” John asked, strolling over and keeping an eye on Donovan and Anderson.

“Apart from the fact I’ve been drugged, I’m grand,” Sherlock muttered through gritted teeth as he blinked rapidly and tried to concentrate.

“Drugged?” John repeated, crouching down beside him in worry. “Sherlock…”

“It’s nothing major,” Sherlock whispered to him, flicking his fingers in Donovan’s direction. “Obviously Sally spiked the coffee you insisted I drink before we got here from the police station—how or why she has Sildenafil on her person is probably to do with Anderson’s sexual dysfunction…”

John leaned closer, “I’m sorry, I swear I heard you say that she drugged you with Viagra?”

“You heard correctly,” Sherlock grumbled, rubbing his eyes and adjusting his collar. “I have blurred vision, a headache and I’m flushed…”

“And…do you…have,” John glanced around and lowered his voice as he leaned in a little closer to him, shooting a glare to Sally as she sniggered knowingly. “An erection?”

“Why do you think I’m crouched like this?” Sherlock replied.

“Well…you crouch a lot.”

“Not for this long.”

“…Yeah, you do.”

Sherlock glared at him and John shrugged with a lift of his eyebrows as Sherlock turned towards him, “If I get up will you…cover me? I’ll use my coat but…just in case?” Sherlock muttered.

“Sure. Of course—do you want to leave? It’s best if you get it sorted before it becomes more of a problem,” John told him as he got to his feet with Sherlock, making sure to hide Sherlock’s body from view. “If left…it...well, there are cases of the penis being damaged.”

“…Damaged?”

“Damaged. It’s considered a medical emergency if the penis doesn’t return to a flaccid state for a lengthy amount of time.”

“Everything all right over there?” Sally asked with an innocent expression. “Know who done it, yet?”

“Possibly,” Sherlock replied as John turned to glower at her, keeping his body in front of Sherlock’s. “Lestrade, I suggest you have a closer look at the dead boy’s uncle and get back to me.”

Lestrade frowned and walked over, “What? You’re leaving? You just got here!”

“Yes, well,” Sherlock smiled tightly and patted his shoulder as he pulled his coat closed and stalked off. “I’ve got to let you at least try and find the answer without me. How else will you learn? I can’t keep holding your hand, Lestrade.”

John touched Lestrade’s arm with an apologetic but cheeky grin and followed Sherlock, scowling at Sally and Anderson as they both snickered like two schoolgirls. Lestrade looked around at them with his own scowl and crossed his arms, walking over after John motioned to them.

“Something funny?” He asked loudly, rocking forward on his feet. “Come on then, share it with the class?”

John smirked and caught up with Sherlock who had flagged down a cab and was waiting for him patiently with his coat held closed and his face flushed pink. John ushered him into the taxi with a comfortingly hand on his arm and watched as Sherlock winced and grimaced as he arranged himself on the backseat, leaning at an awkward angle with annoyance. Sherlock didn’t seem overly embarrassed by the situation, merely peeved, and John found it somewhat amusing despite himself, trying not to glance at the obvious way in which Sherlock sat and held his posture.

Once they arrived back at the flat, Sherlock yanked off his coat, threw down his scarf, and rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. John sat down to uncomfortably wait with a sigh, picking up his laptop and switching it on. However, halfway through checking his emails, Sherlock walked back out and stood tensely behind him silently until John turned to give him his attention with a concerned furrow of his brow.

“You okay?” John asked awkwardly, unable to not notice that Sherlock was still in a state. “Something…wrong?”

“I can’t do it,” Sherlock told him through gritted teeth. “It’s not working. It…hurts—and don’t give me that look, John. I know how to masturbate for crying out loud!”

“What look?” John frowned, getting up to face Sherlock and shrugging. “I didn’t give you a look.”

“You gave me a look.”

“…Show me the look I gave you—”

Sherlock growled and pressed on his temples, “Forget about the look! John, it hurts! You’re a doctor, do something! Doctor me!”

John snorted but nodded and held up a compliant hand when Sherlock glared, “Okay, okay. Why don’t you try using some lubricant?” 

Sherlock blinked and then inclined his head brusquely, “Right. Of course. Yes. Thank you,” he muttered, turning to leave and then turning back with a sigh. “Do you have any I could borrow?”

“You don’t have lube?” John asked. “You? I would have sworn you’d have a cupboard full for…some reason or another.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“…How can you not—?” 

Sherlock groaned and dropped his head in his hands, “Will you let me borrow some lube or not, John? I am in agony here! It’s practically throbbing!”

John sliced a hand through the air roughly, “Okay, that’s enough. Too much information, right there,” he muttered, walking quickly into his bedroom and rummaging through his drawers before returning and holding out a bottle. “Here—don’t use it all.” 

“Thank you,” Sherlock sighed, snatching it and reading the label intently as he stalked back into the bathroom. 

John huffed, clearing his throat to push away the slight awkwardness of what had happened and what was happening, and sat back down, turning the television on instead of going back to his laptop. He smiled faintly when he flicked through the channels and stumbled upon the TV show “Embarrassing Bodies”, and wrinkled his nose with a muffled laugh, feeling both annoyed and sorry for half of the patients. Who on earth would leave their body in such a state for years without seeking help? Who were these people that jumped at the chance of showing their medical misfortunes on live television?”

“John?” Sherlock bellowed. “John, it’s not working!”

“How can it not be working? Be more specific—no, wait, don’t! Just…just relax and keep…keep trying,” John shouted back, glancing over the back of his chair briefly. “Is it just not going down afterwards?”

“I haven’t even ejaculated yet!”

John covered his face with one hand and sighed, hoping Mrs Hudson wasn’t home, “Okay…well…do that first!”

“I can’t! I just told you, it’s not working!” Sherlock yelled, sounding overly frustrated and slightly panting. “John, it hurts! It’s darkly flushed and leaking and agonisingly stiff and—”

John cursed and jumped to his feet, walking briskly to the bathroom door, “Keep it down!” he hissed through the closed door. “Just…just think of something good and—I thought you said you knew how to masturbate?” 

“I do!”

“Then do it!” John exclaimed, a blush creeping up his cheeks no matter how professional he tried to be. “Sherlock…what—God this is way beyond what normal flatmates do…Sherlock…tell me what you’re doing?”

Sherlock whinged and then suddenly yanked open the door, his face flushed, his brow sweaty, and his trousers undone, “I’m running a bloody marathon—What do you think, I’m doing?” he snarled, one of his hands slick. “I’m doing what any normal bloke would do, John. I’m grasping my penis and stroking it for the sole purpose of orgasm.”

“You’re obviously doing something wrong,” John said, trying not to sigh in annoyance nor look down. 

Sherlock pulled a face and waved the slippery hand at John irritably, something that John dodged to avoid, “You do it then!” Sherlock sneered. 

“What?”

“You do it. You obviously know something I don’t—I mean, theoretically, I’m not wholly surprised if you did, going by the amount of time you waste masturbating every day! It’s a miracle you get any work done at all, what with your hand forever on your—”

“Um! Excuse me, I don’t masturbate that frequently!”

“Yes, you do. I hear you. I always hear you. You try and be quiet, but I hear you, John. I hear how desperately you try and muffle your sounds of ecstasy, stupidly thinking that biting down on your hand or pushing your face into your pillow or clenching your teeth, stops the deep, vibrating, mewling sounds from escaping your throat!”

“Mewling?” John repeated after a moment of silence, glowering deeply and watching as Sherlock shifted his weight with discomfort. “I do not…mewl.”

Sherlock nodded with a mocking grin, “Yes, you do.”

“No.”

“Yes. Very loudly. Very frequently.”

John folded his arms, “No, I don’t. I think I would know.”

“How?” Sherlock scoffed. “When you orgasm you’re hardly under complete control of your body, are you? You make an abundant of silly, embarrassing noises when you climax!”

John blushed but narrowed his eyes more with a deeper scowl, “I do not mewl!”

Sherlock gritted his teeth and rubbed his forehead, “Enough! Will you just stroke me to completion already? I can’t do it, and you’re the bloody master, so why don’t you just do it for me? Show me how it’s done, hm? If you think you’re so clever, so masterful and knowledgeable about the male penis!”

“Will you keep it down? And I am not going to do that, Sherlock.”

“Why not?” Sherlock complained edgily, gesturing with his slicked hand again. “I am not going to the hospital, John. I shall not sit there in the waiting room, surrounded by elderly people and sniffling children, with a massive erection—don’t you dare laugh at me, John. This isn’t funny. I’m hurting. What kind of doctor are you?”

John stifled his giggles and nodded, forcing his expression into something more stern and detached, “Okay…okay, I’m sorry. But I am not going to give you a hand job, Sherlock. That’s asking way too much. Way too much. I’m your friend and I want to help you, but I’m not doing that—”

“Put on a glove,” Sherlock suggested, rolling his eyes when John frowned in confusion. “If you’re worried about it being weird or intimate, with you touching my skin, then wear a glove. You have latex gloves here—and if you don’t, I certainly do.”

“No.”

“You’ve touched hundreds of penises, John. Why won’t you touch mine?”

John’s face burst with heat, “Dear God, if someone hears you—Sherlock, I haven’t touched hundreds of erect penises; nor penises that belonged to my best friend and flatmate who needs my hand to get off properly!”

“John, I’m in discomfort, I need help, there is nothing sexual about this whatsoever,” Sherlock said, motioning to himself as proof. “Please, John, please just…just help me. No one will know and I shan’t bring it up, so what’s the problem? You’ve tended to me multiple times as my doctor; this is nothing different. You’re helping me with a medical problem.” 

John exhaled deeply and shook his head, “Try again, Sherlock, on your own. You don’t need me for this—”

“You said I was obviously doing it wrong. So if I keep trying, logically, according to you, I’ll keep doing it incorrectly and therefore get nowhere. John, you need to help me with this. Forget you’re my friend for a moment, and just be my doctor.”

“A doctor would not sort this problem out the way you want me to, Sherlock,” John said. “If worse comes to worst, needles are involved.”

Sherlock winced bodily and paled a little, “All the more reason for you to do this for me, so I don’t have to go through that torture!”

“There are…other ways to try out before anything major though. Gentle exercise, a warm bath and…urinating,” John recommended. “Only when nothing works and it’s painful and been erect for more than four hours, do you then go to A&E, where you might take some medication, or have blood removed from the penis or…surgery, if it’s that bad…which I’m not saying it will be.”

“John, for goodness sake, put on a glove and help me,” Sherlock whined, adjusting his stance and then wincing, lifting his shirt out of the way and tugging down his underwear to expose himself to John, whom grimaced and quickly looked away. “John, please! Nothing I do is working! I stroke myself just as I’ve always done. It always used to be quick and efficient, and I know how to pleasure myself, but it’s not working. It just frustrates me further and hurts—” 

“Okay!” John exclaimed, throwing his hands up and then shifting awkwardly as he avoided Sherlock’s gaze. “God, I can’t believe I’m going to do this but…okay. Face the toilet. I’ll put on some gloves and…help you.”

John left quickly before Sherlock could reply and grabbed the box of latex gloves, yanking two out and snapping them on skilfully. He tried not to think about what he was going to do, tried not to feel as horridly embarrassed and uncomfortable as he did, but ultimately failed and grimaced as he walked back to the bathroom to find Sherlock’s back to him from where he was facing the toilet with his trousers and underwear pushed low on his thighs. John shoved away the surge of mortification and unease and stepped up to him, reaching around to take hold of Sherlock’s erection without warning. 

Sherlock gasped with a flinch and tipped his head down to watch, “Do you need more lube?”

John buried his face into Sherlock’s shoulder blades for a moment and then held out his hand, “Sure.”

The lubrication was lukewarm as it was dribbled onto John’s hand and he slicked it efficiently along Sherlock’s length before he began to stroke and grip with purpose, working up a rhythm and squeezing after a few moments on the upstroke, using the techniques that John himself enjoyed and hoping it had some sort of effect on Sherlock. Sherlock was silent as John worked, merely breathing deeply and rapidly, and John was grateful, resting his head against Sherlock’s back as he moved his hand a little faster.

However, when John twisted his wrist slightly, Sherlock grunted and bucked his hips instinctively forwards, thrusting into the ring of John’s fingers. John’s hand slipped off for a brief moment and he pushed a little closer to Sherlock’s back to reaffirm his grip and stroke harder, clearing his throat self-consciously when Sherlock’s hips twitched again, and then grasping the side of Sherlock’s waist with his other gloved hand to keep him still. Sherlock tensed and slowly leaned forward over the toilet, bracing himself with one hand against the wall as John twisted his wrist again and stimulated the head of Sherlock’s penis purposely, rubbing at his foreskin with impulsive touches.

Sherlock’s penis was intensely hot, rigid, long and faintly curved, and as much as John tried not to, he couldn’t help but compare it to his own, finding that his was thicker in girth than Sherlock’s and the head of Sherlock’s penis was a slightly different shape than John’s own. Sherlock wheezed a moment as John unconsciously groped and fingered his frenulum, and then Sherlock rutted with a barely concealed groan, and John felt the veins throb as Sherlock’s erection twitched.

“Stop…stop comparing,” Sherlock snapped breathlessly. “And just make me ejaculate.”

John flushed from his neck to his ears in one swoop, and then gripped the base of his penis with a glower at Sherlock’s nape, “Don’t order me around—remember just what I’m holding and check your tone. I could leave you to it, at any point, I shouldn’t even be doing this, Sherlock.”

Sherlock shifted his stance and his erection twitched again, bobbing firmly, “Please, then. Please, just make me ejaculate.” 

John rolled his eyes but started up the movement of his hand again, trying to block out the slick sound of his gloved hand slipping along Sherlock’s hardened skin faster and faster, as he increased the speed and his grip, squeezing on every upstroke. Sherlock was still watching him work, his head bowed, and John stared at the curls plastered against his skin as Sherlock began to sweat with heightening arousal and lean further and further forwards over the toilet bowl.

Sherlock groaned suddenly after a few more moments, and the sound was so deep and loud and vibrating, that John jumped in shock and paused, grunting in the next second when Sherlock began thrusting into John’s fist wildly, his legs buckling. John grabbed him around the waist with his other arm and huffed when Sherlock’s backside knocked back into him a few times as Sherlock squirmed and rocked against John’s slicked hand, until Sherlock seemed to get himself under control and stiffened tensely, breathing hard.

“…This isn’t going to work,” John muttered when Sherlock swayed forwards on shaking legs.

“What? No…it will,” Sherlock panted, not looking at John but grabbing his wrist to keep his hand on him. “Come on, please, I’m close, I know it—I need you to do this…”

“Sherlock, you’re going to smack your head on the wall or the toilet lid at this rate, you can barely stand,” John told him sternly, yanking his hand back. “Pull your trousers up—”

“No,” Sherlock whined through clenched teeth, trying to snatch John’s hand back. “No, I won’t, you need to help me with this, please!”

John tugged Sherlock’s trousers up himself with his non-slicked hand and nudged Sherlock’s shoulder, “I will! But not here, you’ll hurt yourself—go…go into your bedroom. I’ll be in there with you in a moment.”

“Why? Where are you going?” Sherlock asked as he half turned around, fumbling to follow John when he walked out and headed for his bedroom. “John?”

“Go to your bedroom. Sit on the bed and wait,” John ordered him, walking briskly away and up the stairs to his own room, and to his bedside drawer, pulling out a condom wrapper. He paused a moment, fiddled with it, and then sighed and walked back to Sherlock, holding it out. “Put this on.”

Sherlock took it tentatively and frowned, “Um, John, I don’t think…”

“No, you idiot,” John said in annoyance, waving a hand. “It’s to cut down on…mess. Now, put the damn thing on.”

Sherlock scowled and huffed, opening the wrapper to pull the condom out and peer at it, slowly flashing John a stroppy expression, “I’ve…never really used one of these, you know. Never had any need to.”

John seized it from him in aggravation and then hesitated a moment, narrowing his eyes, “Wait…so…you’ve never put one on because you’ve not…had sex?”

“No,” Sherlock replied with a shrug, interlacing his fingers in brief meekness and then hardening his stare. “You can’t say you’re surprised by this?”

“Well…yeah, a little. I thought you’d do it for an experiment or something? Just to see what it’s like and to gather an opinion on it,” John mumbled. “And even so, they teach you how to put a condom on in school anyway—”

Sherlock shook his head, “I’ve deleted any memory of it, if so.”

“I’m…not sure I want to do this now,” John sighed, feeling uneasy about suddenly finding out Sherlock was indeed a virgin.

“Oh for the love of God—John, I haven’t had penetrative sex, that doesn’t mean I’ve not done other things. There is more to life than sticking your penis into holes, you realise? And sexual acts come in a range of types,” Sherlock said, reaching to grab John’s arm and pull him closer. “Anyway, you’ve already touched me—and I need you. I can’t do this without you. I came extremely close to orgasm with your hand on me, whereas I didn’t get anywhere at all alone.”

John flushed and shook away Sherlock’s words, “Fine. Drop your…trousers and underwear.” 

Sherlock nodded and blundered as he did as he was told, sitting on his bed with his trousers around his ankles and his shirt covering half of his penis. John stepped forward and pushed the shirt aside, gritting his teeth with awkwardness when Sherlock’s erection dipped towards him slickly as he rolled the condom on and tried not to stare. Sherlock reached for his own shirt when John stepped away, and quickly unbuttoned it and placed it aside, exposing the flush of arousal on his chest and neck to John.

“I’ll…um, sit beside you,” John said as he moved next to Sherlock, applied more lubrication to his hand, and reached across to grasp him again, trying not to notice the way Sherlock’s eyes fluttered in pleasure and his erection throbbed. “Right. I’m going to carry on from where we…left…off.”

Sherlock dipped his head a little too eagerly and gripped the edge of the bed when John began stroking at the same speed and firmness as before, squeezing and teasing the head of Sherlock’s hardened penis. Sherlock stared down at the sight and panted through his nose, shaking impatiently and then abruptly rutting against John’s fingers with a wet exhalation, his eyes rolling. John couldn’t help but gawk at Sherlock’s face as it crumpled with delight and he all but fucked John’s fist with increasing vigour and shaking thighs.

“Ah! Yes…yes, John…” Sherlock unexpectedly moaned, gripping onto John’s arm with a shivering gasp. “Yes! Yes…make…make me come…”

John choked on his own spit as he inhaled in shock and shifted with humiliation, “Sherlock…keep it down!”

Sherlock pressed his mouth together tightly in response and groaned, low and rumbling in his throat with a new bloom of colour in his cheeks. John, feeling insanely embarrassed by it all, shifted closer to put more effort into his working hand in the hopes of finishing the situation quickly so he could push the event to the back of his mind to never think of again. However, as he did so, Sherlock grunted and tipped his hips so sharply in reaction, that John's hand slipped down and smeared over Sherlock’s scrotum. Sherlock huffed in pleasure and clenched his thighs as he rocked into John’s hand wantonly, rubbing John’s gloved fingers over his tensed skin.

John thoughtlessly cupped and fondled him there before he replaced his hand on Sherlock’s erection and gripped and stroked and squeezed harder and faster, thumbing Sherlock’s weeping slit through the condom with a hot blush on his cheeks, his eyes glued to Sherlock’s face as Sherlock’s head lolled and he panted, grimacing with satisfaction and lust. Sherlock was rutting with abandon into John’s hand by the time John twisted his wrist skilfully and stimulated his glans, and Sherlock groaned loudly and looked down with blown pupils.

“Mm—yes! John…I’m…I’m going to…you’re making me come…John…I’m coming…” Sherlock whined and worked his hips erratically, tightening his hold on John’s arm, before he bent over his lap tautly and screwed his face up in orgasm, his mouth open on a silent scream.

A noise escaped John’s throat as Sherlock’s penis hardened a little further and then pulsed with a rough jerk, coating the inside of the condom in four hard bursts. John stroked Sherlock through it dazedly and then let go when it became too sensitive to touch, watching as Sherlock panted loudly and slumped with gratification, shaking all over.

“…You…you okay?” John asked when Sherlock remained in the bent over position, pulling off his gloves slowly, feeling hot and uncomfortable. “Sherlock?”

“Fine,” Sherlock breathed, straightening somewhat, letting John’s arm go, and staring down at the condom with an unfocused gaze and a soft frown. “…That’s more than I normally produce.” 

John got to his feet and headed for the door, “Let…let me know if it doesn’t go down after…this. If it’s still painful and…and still erect…then we’ll have to take you to A&E.”

Sherlock nodded lethargically, “M’kay. Thank you, John.”

“Yeah…um, you’re welcome…I suppose,” John replied, clearing his throat and then stepping out of the door. “Oh, and Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

“…You mewled.”


	2. Helping Hand

John turned around to look at Sherlock with question as his named was called, and slowly wandered over with a shrug at Lestrade, smiling when he neared the squatting figure of Sherlock. It had been six weeks since the Viagra incident, John had tried not to count the days but in the end he couldn’t seem to stop it, and he wasn’t sure what that said about him or the event he tried so desperately to put behind him. It had been nothing, just like Sherlock had said, it had not been sexual, and it had only been John helping Sherlock with a medical problem. Helping Sherlock in a very unprofessional and completely insane way, but still helping him nonetheless. After Sherlock had come down from his pleasure high, he had gotten changed and dragged John back out into the night at Lestrade’s text, acting as if nothing had happened and ignoring all of Sally’s snarky and snide comments without much effort.

“Yeah?” John asked when he was close enough, lifting his brows when Sherlock stood fluidly and grabbed his wrist, leading him from the room and into the hallway.

They were at yet another crime scene, at yet another house where yet another corpse was sprawled out on the floor, and John signalled to Lestrade that they’d be right back as he stumbled out at Sherlock’s persistent and insistent tugging. Sherlock seemed fidgety and tense, the muscle in his jaw faintly jumping and his hand hot and vibrating from where he gripped John’s arm. For a moment, John felt a jolt in his gut, and looked around at Anderson with suspicion. Had they drugged Sherlock again? Did he have to do the same thing he’d tried to forget he’d done, again?

“Shut the door,” Sherlock told him as he flicked his gaze up and down the hallway, letting John go to open the last few buttons on his coat with trembling fingers.

“…Okay,” John muttered, turning to shut the door to the crime scene with a quick glance in. “Are you okay? Is there something that you—”

Sherlock grabbed for his wrist again suddenly and turned to face John with an intent expression, his cheeks flushing as he let out a breath and parted his lips, shoving John’s hand into the waistband of his trousers and underwear in one eager but fumbling motion. John blinked in surprise as his bare fingers met hard, hot, moist skin, and before he could yank his hand back in outrage, Sherlock grunted and groaned low in his throat, biting down on his bottom lip as liquid heat unexpectedly coated John’s hand in thick, hard, spurts. Sherlock shuddered tensely at the swift climax and twitched forwards a little, thrusting his hips, shifting his stance and then finally slumping his shoulders with a lazy grin after the slicked, wet, head of his penis smeared along John’s thumb, oozing hotly with a final and weak pulse.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” John asked in the next second, yanking his hand back and staring at the mess streaked across his skin with a look of shock and mortification. Briefly catching a glimpse of Sherlock’s flushed and glistening penis as it slipped under the hem of Sherlock’s underwear.

“Quiet,” Sherlock rumbled, still high from his orgasm as he amended his clothes and coat, levelling out his heavy breathing with a pleasure sigh. “God, that’s so much better.”

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock frowned and shushed him snappily, then looked John over, “What? I’ve been erect for ages, no idea why, and I needed your expertise again. Problem?”

John gaped at him, “Of course there’s a bleeding problem! You’ve just…you…you didn’t even ask permission and you…you can’t just…do that!”

“Ah. A bit not good? Right. Sorry, but I need to concentrate and I can’t with an erection,” Sherlock explained flippantly, adjusting himself in his pants and then tucking in his shirt. “I knew your touch would help, because it did before, only now, now I’m not drugged so it was easier to climax and I could control it a tad more.”

“A bit not good? This goes far beyond “a bit not good”, Sherlock!” John muttered lowly, looking back at his hand when the ejaculate coating his palm and fingers dripped slowly down his wrist.

“There was no time to have you put on a glove,” Sherlock said before he followed John’s gaze and rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath as he pulled John’s hand towards him and promptly licked up his own mess, sucking John’s fingers individually and then curling his tongue down John’s wrist to catch the errant dribbles. “There. Stop complaining.”

John gawked at him and Sherlock flicked up his collar, ruffled his hair and opened the door to step back into the crime scene room, stalking over to Lestrade with a conceited grin, his arms gesturing as he explained something to Lestrade that had him sighing in annoyance. John lingered in the doorway, his hand still poised before him, and his face still frozen in confusion and embarrassment. He couldn’t believe what had happened, and the memories of Sherlock’s crying out and grunting in pleasure with his face screwed up and his mouth agape from the incident before, flashed rapidly behind his eyes. 

Only when Lestrade frowned over at John in confusion did John snap out of his trance and walk slowly back inside, dropping his hand to his side as casually as he could with his skin still drying from Sherlock’s saliva. Sherlock beamed and moved around the room as if nothing had happened, his long fingers wriggling as he motioned along the corpse and then pointed to a window. John had no clue what he was saying or what was going on, and could only scowl gently at Sherlock in silence, following him when Sherlock gestured for him to do so, and ignoring Lestrade suspicious gaze.

During the rest of the day, John pushed the event to the back of his mind, slotting it alongside the Viagra incident to never be revisited again, and carried on as normal, or as normal as he could with his hand smelling of Sherlock at any rate. Sherlock smiled at him more but otherwise didn’t comment or act any differently than he normally did as he pounced on clues and belittled witnesses. John narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips tightly throughout it all, keeping back the barrage of questions and exclamations until the door to their flat shut behind them and he’d hung up his coat.

“What the hell are you playing at?” John shouted, shocking Sherlock who jerked his head up with wide eyes. “At the crime scene, with the…with what you did, why did you do that?”

Sherlock squinted at him in bewilderment and then aggravation and walked slowly to sit in his chair, “…I told you why.”

“And you think that’s…good? That your explanation on why you thrust my hand down your bloody pants is a good one?” John asked in exasperation, swinging his arms animatedly and then folding them tightly when Sherlock arched an eyebrow at them. “Well?”

“…You’re angry.”

“Fantastic. Gold star. How on earth did you know, oh master of deduction?”

Sherlock frowned at the sarcasm and sat forward, “Are you angry because of what I did or because you liked it?”

John stared at him, gobsmacked for a few moments, and then let out a short, dry laugh, “Are you being serious?”

“Yes,” Sherlock shrugged, looking like he didn’t care if John believed him or not.

“What I did for you,” John began after he’d counted to ten and calmed his festering anger, “was not an invitation to use my hand whenever you pleased. I…I…tossed you off because you begged me to, because you needed me to, because you couldn’t do it yourself and you were in pain and…and I helped you; against my better judgement, I helped you the way you pleaded to be helped—Today you weren’t in pain, you weren’t drugged or in need of assistance, you just randomly had a hard on, as all blokes tend to do, and you used my hand to get rid of the problem without even asking for my permission. Do you not see the issue with that?” 

Sherlock inclined his head, “Fine. I’ll ask for permission in the future—but, John, it had been imperative that I concentrated, and I couldn’t because my erection kept chafing and rubbing against my trousers. It was distracting me, and I can’t abide distractions. Normally, however, I can ignore my body and its…needs, but I just couldn’t focus, and so I had to do something about it.”

“…Did…did you just say that you’ll ask for permission in the future? As in you’re going to do it again and that I’d let you if you asked nicely?” John asked with a deeply furrowed brow in incredulity.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied slowly, looking John up and down just as slowly, and then shifting in his chair. “You won’t allow me to—?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“Are you being intentionally, frustratingly, stupid?” John cried throwing his hands up in the air and then covering his face, only realising it was the one hand Sherlock had ejaculated over when he inhaled the scent of spicy musk, and then dropping it immediately. “Sherlock…my hands are not here for your…sexual satisfaction!”

Sherlock sat back and sighed, looking irritated, “Since that day I haven’t been able to ejaculate unless I fantasise about your hand around my penis,” he admitted casually, gesturing with a flick of his wrist as if what he had just said, explained everything perfectly. “Can we not make an arrangement? That you give me a little…helping hand, every once in a while? It won’t be constant. I’m not much of a sexual being. I can usually just ignore my body, as you rightly know; and if I have an erection, in the morning for example, I normally just wait it out or have a cold shower—but, like today, it sometimes just…pops up - excuse the pun - and I can’t concentrate, nor move properly for that matter, when it does so. It restricts me. Restricts my mind and body, both. The thought of your hand gets me off, and has done for a while now, but the touch is even better, and I’d really appreciate it if I could… benefit from your hand on my penis every so often? Only when I am in dire need of it, of course.”

John gawped at him, “You…you get off on the thought of my hand?”

“On my penis, yes,” Sherlock nodded, smiling fleetingly, and then leaning one of his arms on the armrest of his chair indifferently.

“And you want to…to use my hand like some sort of…pleasuring device?” 

Sherlock wrinkled his nose but twisted his mouth and hitched one shoulder in response, “More or less.”

John laughed shortly, “So…so, it’s gone from not being sexual at all, when I basically jerked you off to “help” your painful situation; to being extremely sexual, where I should now let you come up my hand every once in a while? Is that the gist of things?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at Sherlock and pointing at him with a flickering grin. “This has got to be some sort of joke? You can’t possibly, be serious about this? How do I know you’re not being a massive arse and aren’t just pulling my leg?”

“I did just ejaculate over your hand today,” Sherlock reminded him to answer his latter question. “And it was good, by the way. I was extremely lightheaded from the first touch of bare skin alone—”

“Stop!” John muttered cutting Sherlock off, and clenching his eyes shut in embarrassment. “I can’t believe this—you don’t see anything wrong with this? You don’t think this is a bit too weird? Don’t think this is stretching the line of our friendship a little? You have asked me to do some pretty strange things, Sherlock, but this is by far the strangest! Friends, flatmates, they don’t do this! Heterosexual men do not lend their hand to their best friend so he can get off!”

Sherlock looked annoyed and disappointed, “That’s a no, then?”

“Nothing else about me…you know, turns you on, then?” John pried with an inward wince, holding back his discomfort and ignoring the voice that screamed that he didn’t want to know the answer to that question and asked why he even asked that question in the first place. “Just my hands, yeah?”

Sherlock regarded him wordlessly for a long stretch of tensed silence, and then tilted his head, “I like your arms?”

“...My arms?”

“And your mouth.”

“My—?”

Sherlock tilted his head the opposite way leisurely, “And the way you move.”

John blushed suddenly and hotly, feeling immeasurably uncomfortable, “That…that turns you on? The way I move?”

Sherlock shrugged idly and looked ready to flounce off in boredom judging by the way his face slipped into an impassive expression, “It’s pleasant to watch.”

“And my arms and my mouth?”

“Yes. They’re nice. Your arms are strong and firm and sturdy and extremely useful and appealing; and your mouth purses and smiles and grimaces and twitches in an attractive way,” Sherlock told him without a hint of embarrassment, heaving a large, exaggerated sigh. “So, you won’t “lend” me your hand when I need it, then?”

John moved to sit down heavily in his own chair and stared at Sherlock in disbelief, “You…really don’t see how weird this is? You see nothing wrong with asking me to get you off whenever you have a stiffy; about telling me that my hands turn you on; or about making a bloody deal with me about when you can use my hands for your own personal gratification? You don’t see anything wrong with that? At all?”

“No,” Sherlock replied after a moment, studying his nails in an uninterested manner as he crossed his legs brusquely. “But obviously you do, so forget it. Tea?”

“You must see that this is weird, that this is wrong. Even you must see the abnormality in all of this,” John pressed, thinking suddenly of Sherlock’s lips wrapped around his fingers. “I mean, it was weird enough when you…you…cleaned up after yourself the way you did!”

Sherlock’s eyes jerked up and then focused on John suddenly and intently, and Sherlock blushed as he cleared his throat, “Why? Have you not tasted your own semen before?”

“Well…sure, when I was a teen…just to see what it was like, you know, but…but not like you did. Have you done that before? The…the licking and…sucking…?”

“I had to do it, you couldn’t very well wash it off in the victim’s bathroom, could you, and contaminate the crime scene?” Sherlock said, sniffing and pressing his lips together tightly. “And, yes, of course I’d done it before—look, enough of this, John. Will you, or will you not, make me ejaculate whenever my erections become a problem for me? During a crime scene, for example. It wouldn’t be particularly good if someone were to spot me tenting out my trousers as I leaned over a dead, disembowelled corpse, now would it? I do not, as Sally Donovan continually insists, “get off on it,” not the dead bodies, anyway. I am not into necrophilia. I know why she drugged my drink; she wanted to humiliate me and prove her point, possibly get me arrested or questioned, or something just as pathetic. Thankfully though, you helped me. And so I want you to keep helping me.”

“Sherlock—”

“I could, in turn, help you,” Sherlock added precipitously, pressing his fingers together under his chin. 

“…Help me, how?”

“However you like.”

John gazed at Sherlock with interest and then shook his head, waving a hand, “No…no! This is too…just too…wrong, this is wrong, on so many levels. Just no. No to everything. I’m going to pretend this never happened, that you never did that to my hand and that we never had this conversation. Okay? Never. Delete it from your “hard drive” too. This never, ever, happened.”

“Never?”

“Never!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback fuels me!


	3. The Arrangment

“Stop,” John exclaimed when Sherlock brushed purposely passed him again, his crotch rubbing briefly against John’s hand as he shifted over to open the fridge and pulled out a rather bulbous looking ear in a white container.

“What?” Sherlock frowned as he turned to face him, shutting the fridge door with his hip. 

“Stop brushing passed me.”

“…How else am I to get passed?”

“You don’t have to brush passed me like you have been doing—in fact, go around the sodding table! Go around the other way, you don’t need to push or brush or slide passed me at all!” John told him, motioning and pointing the path Sherlock could have gone. “It’s not hard, Sherlock…”

Sherlock’s mouth twitched knowingly as John trailed off with a blush, “I can’t go around the other way, John.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No. No, I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

Sherlock looked over, “The kitchen chair is in the way.”

John rolled his eyes and then spluttered in frustration as Sherlock brushed passed him once again, his crotch only missing John’s hands because John lifted them up and glared at Sherlock strongly. Sherlock smiled at him and walked around to lean against the kitchen table, opening the container with interest and poking the ear with one gloved fingertip. John watched him tensely for a moment or two, and then turned back to finish making himself a cup of tea with a shake of his head.

“Put my tea down over there,” Sherlock mumbled just as John was making his way to the sitting room. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t make you tea—”

“I said, thank you.”

John clenched his jaw and moved back over to refill the kettle, “You’re a right bloody prick, you know that? Why didn’t you tell me you wanted tea when I asked you if you wanted a cup?”

“I didn’t want one then.”

“But you want one now? Barely several minutes after I asked you in the first place—Sherlock! Go around the table!” John huffed when Sherlock squeezed passed him once more, his pelvis and crotch pushed up against John’s backside and then catching his hand as he fisted it at his side. “I’ll punch you in the face if you do it again…”

“No, you won’t.”

John turned around to glare at Sherlock and came face to face with him as he slid back against him on his way back to his experiment, his eyes flitting and intense and penetrating as he locked gazes with John and tilted his head. John swallowed as his mind brought up the way Sherlock’s eyes looked blown with arousal and clenched his jaw, nudging Sherlock in the side roughly to push him on his way. Sherlock somehow caught John’s other hand on his hip and then sat down to jab the ear with a scalpel with a sweet and innocent smile when the kettle bubbled loudly.

“Git.”

Since incident number two, John and Sherlock had mostly gotten back to normal, with the new odd addition of Sherlock pushing up against John at random times with a blank or curious expression that John didn’t always look at. John didn’t know if Sherlock was doing it just to be annoying or for other reasons that John really didn’t want to think too much about lest he go out of his mind with embarrassment. Perhaps it was all in John’s head? Although, Sherlock never did anything without purpose, did he?

Sherlock continued to bother John for another few days until all touching suddenly ceased altogether and John found himself actually missing it. Though it wasn’t the touching more than the attention, or that was what John insisted on telling himself over and over again until he stopped anticipating, stopped waiting, stopped yearning. Every time Sherlock moved close to John, he expected to be touched or brushed against in some way, but it didn’t happened, and what was even worse was that Sherlock hardly even glanced at John in the same narrowed, interested, mischievous way he had before.

It seemed like everything had been forgotten, that Sherlock had grown bored and had moved on to more important, engaging conquests, and John tried not to let the drowning disappointment show. Why did he even care? He had wanted Sherlock to stop, he had told him to never bring it up, to forget about it, to delete it; and when Sherlock had finally done what he’d asked, John felt disheartened and affronted. Logically it was for the best that it all end, yet somehow John kept thinking about it, kept remembering the way Sherlock had looked and felt and sounded when he had climaxed; John had even begun dreaming about it, and he felt perverted and pathetic because of it. 

Nevertheless, when a few weeks went by the same way, John started to get more used to shifting back to how things were before the first incident, even if at times he wanted Sherlock to look at him with a wicked glint in his eyes; and soon John found himself being dragged along to another crime in the same, normal way as before, with Sherlock buzzing and grinning with energy. 

John looked across at the very attractive woman who was the apparent witness of a recent murder, whilst Lestrade took notes and Sherlock paced around them all, moving to stand at John’s back with a tensed expression and a look of complete exasperation.

“It was awful,” She sobbed, dabbing at her face and eyes with a tissue. “I didn’t think anything of it at first…but looking back—Oh God!”

“Take your time,” Lestrade said, sounding forcefully soft and calm as he glanced from her to John in annoyance. They had been standing next to her as she wept for at least twenty minutes and Lestrade, as tolerant and gentle as he was, was beginning to lose patience. 

John smiled encouragingly at her when she lifted her teary gaze and then tried to look interested in what she had to say, when in reality, he was becoming hyperaware of the fact that Sherlock was stepping closer to his back. He peered over his shoulder briefly and looked up into Sherlock’s face, but Sherlock was staring at the woman, his expression blank and his gaze flitting from her hands to her face and back again. 

“I couldn’t really see who it was…you know, because of the poor light,” the woman said, still crying and still wiping her face. “But…well, I know it was a man. He was tall…with…with broad shoulders and…and I think he was blonde…because of how the light bounced off his hair?”

John sighed silently and wondered why Sherlock hadn’t belittled her or complained or even deduced something about her yet, in fact, John was surprised that Sherlock had been silent for so long and sneaked another glance back at him again in question.

Abruptly, Sherlock dropped his eyes to return John’s look and then shuffled forward to press the hard line of his erection where John’s hands were folded at his back. The flushing of Sherlock’s cheeks was quick and entrancing and John took a shaky breath and shook his head very faintly in rejection even as he flexed his fingers and rubbed along the straining shape of Sherlock, trying to make it seem accidental but ending up being blatantly willing. Apparently Sherlock had been silent and pacing because of another errant erection, and he wanted John to help him deal with it.

Slowly but surely, Sherlock tipped his hips and skilfully hooked John’s idle fingers into the undone, gaping fly of his trousers and down against his confined, twitching erection in a smooth but shuddering grind. John peeked over at Lestrade and then the woman with a clenched jaw, and with one hand, reached back and slipped his fingers into the waistband of Sherlock’s underwear to cup the hardened length of him, letting Sherlock rut against his palm and fingers until he spattered roughly in such a strong and copious amount against John’s hand, that John was sure he could hear each slick spurt as it hit. Sherlock exhaled in John’s ear and bucked slightly, rubbing his throbbing and pulsing penis along John’s palm wetly until John pulled his hand away and wiped it dry on the outside of Sherlock’s underwear, distantly noting the bloom of wetness from where the last few streaks of ejaculate soaked through.

“Is that all there is?” Lestrade asked the witness with a tight expression.

“Yes,” Sherlock grunted breathily as he trembled and slumped a little against John’s back, still in the midst of orgasm.

Lestrade turned to look at him with a frown, “What?”

Sherlock lifted his head with an unfurling, languid grin and then tensed, blinked, looked between Lestrade and the woman and John, and straightened; hiding at John’s back as he discreetly fastened his trousers.

“I said, yes, that’s all there is,” Sherlock replied, clearing his throat when his voice came out husky and deep. “She knows exactly whom she saw. This is just an act, a show. She’s either related to the murderer or in love with them…or both. Also, I’m pretty certain her little crying performance was to distract us from noticing that she is currently keeping and hiding vital evidence in her handbag, next to her tissues…it’s the murder weapon, yes?”

The woman gaped at him and John and Lestrade exchanged a quick glance until the woman suddenly bolted with a snarl, barely making it a few steps before Lestrade grabbed hold of her.

John watched Sherlock as he stalked around to confront her with a knowing smirk and a stream of deductions that had the woman crying for real, and tried not to think of his tacky and still faintly wet hand. He could scarcely believe what he had just done, couldn’t believe that he’d given in to Sherlock so willingly, so eagerly, and only a few feet away from Lestrade as well. After John had tried so hard to forget and get used to never bringing up or doing anything remotely sexual with Sherlock ever again, he turned around and gave in to the questioning nudge of Sherlock’s hips without so much as a waver.

Once they were back at the flat, John turned to face Sherlock with a loud sigh and gestured weakly, “Go on then.”

“What?”

“Say whatever it is that you want to say,” John told him, folding his arms. “I know you want to say something. I know you have some smug little speech about—”

“No speech,” Sherlock told him as he hung up his coat and scarf. “I don’t do “speeches”, John.”

John followed him slowly and sat down on his chair, “…But you want to say something? I know you do. You must do. After all this time? After everything I did and said to you…you must have something to say after what… happened today?”

Sherlock regarded him from under his fringe and then smiled, “Yes.”

“Well…go on then!” John exclaimed, nervously fidgeting and looking down at the hand that had been on Sherlock, had been covered with Sherlock, and that still smelt like Sherlock. “Tell me how you knew that I’d give in to you sooner or later. How you’d deduced that I’ve been thinking about it…constantly, for weeks now, and how I might have actually been looking forward to it—”

“Do you agree to my arrangement?” Sherlock asked simply.

John lifted his gaze and frowned, “Your…arrangement?”

“Yes. The one I put to you when I explained how much I enjoy and fantasise about your hand on me. The one you dismissed and complained about. The one you wished to never bring up again. That arrangement.”

“…Right. That one. Course.”

“Well?”

John scratched at his chin and cheek tensely, “Remind me again what it was you said?”

Sherlock regarded him steadily, “You know very well what I said. Do you agree?”

“I…I don’t—wait a moment, didn’t you promise that you’d ask permission in the future! Something you didn’t do today, I might add!” John exclaimed, pondering why he wouldn’t just agree like he clearly wanted to and get it over and done with. “What if you…you change the arrangement? What if you edit it to your own means and it becomes…becomes something…else…”

“I did ask,” Sherlock debated, smirking after a second. “Just not with my mouth.”

“Jesus Christ…”

“Do you agree?”

John dropped his head in his hands, “Why did you even have an…an erection anyway? And did you have to whip it out that close to Greg?”

Sherlock blinked with a furrowed brow and scrunched up his eyes in confusion, “Who?”

“Lestrade!”

“Oh,” Sherlock breathed with a slight nod, and then a roll of his shoulders. “I was desperate. I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away. You weren’t exactly helping the situation.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

John sat up straighter and threw his hands up, exasperated, “What did I do?” 

“Standing there with your arms and your mouth and that military way about you,” Sherlock mumbled with a flick of his wrist and a haughty sniff. “Not to mention how many times you used your hands to talk—”

“Do you hear yourself? God…Sherlock, it’s like you…you…” John trailed off and locked eyes with Sherlock as Sherlock arched his eyebrow and crossed his legs elegantly. “Listen, why don’t you go get changed? You can’t be comfortable? Not after…well, you know…”

Sherlock pursed his lips and glanced briefly down at his crotch, “Will you give me your answer afterwards?”

“Can’t you just deduce my answer?” John grumbled, running a hand through his hair and then shifted his position on his chair awkwardly.

“I’d much prefer to hear you say it,” Sherlock purred, tilting his head when John looked up at him and then getting to his feet to stand next to John’s chair. “I really appreciate all you do for me, you know…and I’d be more than willing to repay the favour—”

“Nope!” John exclaimed, jumping to his feet and then glaring with a deep and hot blush. “I don’t agree. This is…this is stupid. Weird. Wrong. I…I shouldn’t have…forget…don’t…let’s just…God, I can’t even…I’m not gay…I…you can’t—Tea?”

Sherlock eyed him for a long moment with a flicking of his eyes and a look of bemusement before he huffed, nodded and stalked from the room, slamming the door to his bedroom shut behind him so hard that Mrs Hudson appeared on the landing after a few moments, looking worried and annoyed.

John quickly sent her on her way and paced the sitting room, wringing his hands into his shirt until he turned and walked to wash his hands, scrubbing the scent of Sherlock’s essence from his fingers and his palm fiercely, trying to ignore the blooming blush that trickled down his neck and over his chest.

Sherlock strolled over to him dressed in his pyjamas and watched him in silence for a few moments before he sprawled out on the settee, “I hope you’re not having some sort of crisis. Again. It would be extremely tedious if so.”

“What do you mean, “again”?” John retorted, drying his hands and moving to fill the kettle. “I’m not having a “crisis”. I’m just…overwhelmed.”

Sherlock snorted, “What’s there to be overwhelmed about?”

“The fact that my best friend wants me to make a daily hobby of jerking him off?” 

“It won’t be daily,” Sherlock corrected him, sitting up when John finished making them both tea and reaching for his mug once John shuffled over to him. “I probably won’t bother you any other time, just when I am in dire need, as I expressed beforehand when I first brought forth the idea for the arrangement.”

John sat with a sigh and tapped the side of his own mug agitatedly, “Right…so you won’t unexpectedly turn up in my room in the middle of the night or early in the morning sporting a raging hard-on and expect me to deal with it?” 

Sherlock sat back and blew on his tea thoughtfully, “…Possibly not.”

“Possibly? So…you might?”

“Probably.” Sherlock shrugged nonchalantly. “If I am aching and nothing I do will—”

John cringed and held up a hand to silence him, “Okay. Enough. Don’t…don’t speak anymore. Just…drink your tea.”

“Will you at least give me an answer?”

“I’ll…think about it,” John muttered, turning his head away to try and end the conversation. “I…I just can’t honestly believe you’re asking this of me. Helping you with a medical issue is one thing, even if I helped you unprofessionally…but this? This is…this is something…something else.”

“I need you,” Sherlock said in one big sigh, looking at John over the rim of his mug. “It’s just another…service that you do for me—”

“Service? Jesus, Sherlock, I am not your personal bloody…hand prostitute!”

“No. You’re more than that,” Sherlock agreed in a murmur, stretching his legs out in front of him with a look of frustration. “I don’t understand your reluctance?”

“Really? You really don’t see why I would be reluctant to bring my male friend to orgasm whenever it suited him?”

“No!” Sherlock exclaimed, waving a long arm, “Not when you’ve done it already.”

John put down his mug and pointed at him tersely, “First of all, the first time was to help you, Sherlock, so you didn’t have to get stuck with needles, and I wore gloves and you were…wrapped up, and it was…somewhat professional and made a little more sense. The second time, however, I gave you no indication that I wanted or was okay with you sticking my hand down your pants, but you did it anyway, and came all over my bloody hand at that. And this third time…you…I…”

Sherlock leaned forwards with mock interest, lifting his eyebrows and a hand to his ear patronisingly, “Yes?”

“Shut up!”

“Just agree to my arrangement for goodness sake, John!”

“Fine!” John bellowed, blushing and glancing at the door to the sitting room as he lowered his voice. “Fine. Okay? Fine. I agree. I’ll give you sneaky handjobs at crime scenes right under Lestrade’s nose and…and the noses of anyone else around! All right?”

Sherlock blinked at his words and flushed rapidly before John’s eyes, “…Good. Yes. Very good.”

John shifted to the edge of his chair suddenly and lifted a finger in emphasis, “But…but I get to end the arrangement whenever I want! If I feel wholly uncomfortable or…or I’m dating or…or any other reason, I get to put an end to our frankly, embarrassingly ridiculous contract and we go back to how things used to be before all this…nonsense!”

“What? No.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock looked suddenly petulant, “No.”

“Yes!” John reiterated. “Otherwise…no deal. I don’t agree. I take it back and you can just walk around with a stiffy—”

“Fine,” Sherlock seethed with a snarl, slumping down on the settee and crossing his bare ankles grumpily. “You are absolutely evil and cruel, John Watson, but I accept.”

“Good,” John nodded, picking back up his tea and watching how steady and calm his hand was as he lifted it to his mouth with a thundering of his heart.

“Good.”

“Fine.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes sullenly, “Fine.”


	4. Stimulation

John stirred from slumber with a tingle up his spine and a familiar burst of awareness, and turned around rapidly to be faced with the silhouette of Sherlock in his doorway. John squinted and sat up, frowning in concern for a split second before he glared and dropped back down on his back, covering his face with one arm and curling his hands into fists. It had only been three days since John had accepted the arrangement, and although it wasn’t the first time Sherlock had moved into his bedroom while he was sleeping, John had an inkling that the reason he was there at that moment, had nothing to do with a case or an experiment malfunction, but all to do with the protruding shape of Sherlock’s clothed erection.

“No,” John growled. “Go away, Sherlock. I don’t care if you’re…aching or…whatever it was you said before to do with late night and early morning visits, it’s still no. Get out. Go sort it yourself.”

“I want to change some parts of the arrangement,” Sherlock rumbled, voice thick and slurred with sleep, something that made John lift his arm up to look over at him. “And no, before you ask, it couldn’t wait.”

“Go away.”

“It’ll just take a moment,” Sherlock insisted, hesitating for just a second in the threshold and then strolling determinedly over to drop down on the edge of John’s bed, pulling a piece of paper from somewhere. “I’ve written it down this time, so it’s more…official.”

“Sherlock,” John started, leaning on his elbows to check the time and glowering. “It’s three in the bloody morning!”

“I’m aware of the time, John.”

“Sod off, then!” John exclaimed, pushing on Sherlock’s hip. “I will not be reading anything at this time!”

“I could read it out to you,” Sherlock offered as he leaned over to turn on the bedside lamp with a deep squint. “…Once my eyes adjust…”

“Sherlock, seriously, sod off,” John grumbled, covering his face with his arm again and then turning on his side so his back was to Sherlock. “It can wait until the morning, after I’ve had breakfast and at least two cups of tea, when I’ve woken up gradually and not suddenly, like now—only then can I tolerate your bullshit.”

Sherlock shifted and suddenly leaned over him angrily, “I don’t consider our friendship, bullshit, John.”

“This isn’t a contract for our friendship, Sherlock, this is a stupid contract outlining the absurd and completely mental handjob arrangement that you made up on the spot if only to get someone to deal with your “transport” more efficiently that you can—which, by the way, makes no sense and never did. You should be able to reach orgasm on your bleedin’ own!”

“I can,” Sherlock frowned, climbing over John’s side to sit cross-legged facing him with the paper and a pen held in his grasp, “I only couldn’t when I was drugged up with Viagra, because it wasn’t natural, it wasn’t how I normally function—”

“Enough,” John griped, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “You should have more control now, then? What with you not being drugged anymore? Hm? Why can’t you control your body properly? Why can’t you ignore a sudden and annoying boner like the rest of the male population? Surely this can’t be the first few times that you’ve had a surprise erection at a crime scene or even out in public; it must have happened before, and when it did, what did you do? Because you certainly didn’t need me then!”

Sherlock waited for John to finish and then flashed him an annoyed and tensed smile, “Done?”

“Get out of my room, Sherlock. I can’t and won’t deal with you. Not now,” John huffed, dragging a hand down his face.

“I’ve added a timeline,” Sherlock told him patiently.

“A what?”

“A timeline, for the contract, so you needn’t do it for very long,” Sherlock said, rustling the paper meaningfully and rolling his eyes when John snatched it from him. “You said you wanted to end it whenever you wanted, and you still can, but I took note of what it was you wanted to do, so I calculated—”

“Hang on—what’s this bit about sex toys? Sherlock…you…what…what are you asking for now?” John asked with wide eyes.

“Just as it says.” Sherlock replied. “These are options more than anything, in case you physically can’t touch me because you might be seen, but I still need your assistance.”

“You want me to…” John trailed off as he read more of the contract and then looked up slowly, thrusting the paper back out at him. “No. Just. No. No way. This is going way too far, Sherlock. Sneaky…weird handjobs is one thing, but this?”

Sherlock took the paper with a sigh, “It’ll only be for a short period of time.”

“This makes no sense, Sherlock,” John told him sternly with a hot blush. “If you, for whatever reason, can’t ignore or sort your own erection out then—”

“I’ll obviously have to find other ways to get the problem fixed,” Sherlock shrugged. “I’d just prefer you do it all the time, but you said you wanted to continue dating…”

“Yes. Yeah…yeah, but…but, Sherlock…”

“I like you touching me, and I need you to touch me because it has the dizzying effect of making me ejaculate, which part of that doesn’t make sense?”

John rubbed his brow nervously, “Let’s pretend I can’t do it, let’s take me out of the equation for a moment…if I wasn’t around to give you…release, then what would you do, and why can’t you put whatever it is into practice now, with me being around? Why do I need to touch you? Why do you insist on needing me…like that?”

“Because,” Sherlock said with a deep and frustrated inhale, “it’s better, it’s more…effective. I can do it on my own, I’m not saying I can’t, but it would take longer than it would if you touched me. Your touch stimulates me incalculably—plus, the two times I asked for your assistance outside the drugged incident, I had been sporting an erection for more than an hour, and you were my…last resort, let’s say. You were the only way for me to make it go away, and make it go away quickly, because ignoring it did nothing! And it doesn’t help that you are always around me and that I can see you and…and smell you, and I can’t help thinking about your hand on me as you drove me towards completion and made me—”

“Yeah! Okay…I get it.”

“So, it’s not that I can’t sort it out myself, it’s the fact of that matter that sometimes, it makes sense to have you do it, because of how eagerly and quickly I react to you.”

John grimaced and cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably and trying not to look at the bulge in Sherlock’s pyjamas, “This all sounds so—I mean…do you…are you gay? Do you…want me in…other…ways?”

“In other ways?”

“Do you want to…to…” John trailed off, took a deep breath and looked Sherlock in the face. “Do you want to have sex with me?”

Sherlock’s eyes widened briefly and he frowned, glancing away in thought, “I don’t think so. It’s just this, I want. I just want your hand on my—”

“Are you gay?”

“I’m Sherlock,” Sherlock replied in a monotone, looking unimpressed. 

John glared, “Do you like other men?”

“No.”

“Women?”

“No—didn’t we do this already?” Sherlock asked crossly. “Will you read and sign the new contract?”

“It’s set for a month,” John said, taking the paper back to double check. “What will you do after the month has passed?”

Sherlock shrugged and handed John the pen, “I told you, I’d just have to make do. I’ll find other ways.”

“What about this…sex…toy section? The options. Are you…sure? I mean…I don’t want to do that.”

“I’ll be inserting the device myself,” Sherlock sighed, poking him condescendingly in the chest. “You will have the remote, so all you have to do is press a button to stimulate my prostate.”

“… Have you ever had your prostate stimulated?” John asked him with an arched eyebrow.

“No.”

“Yeah, then, let’s cross all this out, okay?”

“What, why?”

“Because, even if I agreed to it, which I wouldn’t, if I pressed a button to stimulate your prostate at a crime scene…you’ll go crazy.”

Sherlock frowned with a snort, “Crazy how?”

“Just…trust me on this. Especially if it’s your first time being stimulated there, you’ll not be standing strong after an orgasm by that.”

“Show me.”

“…What?”

Spreading his hands, Sherlock grinned, “Show me.”

“No!” John cried in shock. “God, no! Sherlock, I’m not showing you anything. I’m a Doctor, and a sexually experienced man, take my word for it.”

“I’m not the same as everyone else, I might not react the same,” Sherlock told him. “How many men do you know that can have an intense, blinding orgasm, and remain standing and composed?”

“This is completely different,” John laughed shortly. “Completely and utterly.”

“Show me!”

“No!”

“Then I don’t believe you.”

John scowled and gestured to him in annoyance, “Fine. Stimulate your prostate on your own. You can press your own button—but don’t blame me when you’re a gooey puddle on the floor beside the most recent murder victim and contaminating the entire scene by drooling from the mouth.”

Sherlock shifted to his knees, “If I went and retrieved the gloves and the lube, would you show me then?” 

“No,” John growled through his teeth.

“Please?” 

“No!”

Sherlock brooded and then pushed one hand into the back of his pyjamas, “What if I just did it now?”

“No! No, definitely not—and you don’t need to go anally!” John exclaimed, wincing inwardly when Sherlock looked at him with interest and then exhaling roughly. “You can…stimulate it externally via the perineum…which, truthfully, might not work as well or as quickly but it’s still possible…although, go do it in your own room, not here!”

Sherlock fluidly slid from the bed and exited the room, but left the door open, and John glared at it until Sherlock came back with some latex gloves, a condom wrapper and some lube with a determined expression. John watched with a clenched jaw as Sherlock shuffled back onto John’s bed and moved the contract and its pen to the bedside table.

“Sherlock.”

“This is another medical thing,” Sherlock supplied. “Just like before, only I’m a little less drugged and a bit more eager.”

“No, it isn’t, Sherlock! It isn’t a medical thing, at all!”

“You’re my personal Doctor, and I wish to know how to massage my prostate,” Sherlock murmured as he opened the condom wrapper, pushed down the hem of his pyjama bottoms to his thighs to expose himself, and rolled it skilfully on with a flourish. “Doctor me.”

“Stop saying that—this is not, in any way, a medical thing!”

Sherlock squirmed inelegantly and crawled to rest aside John with a look of expectation, “Show me.”

“Sherlock, get off my bed and pull your trousers back up,” John said slowly with a deep glare that Sherlock ignored in favour of putting the lube bottle in John’s hand. “You…bought your own lube?”

“Obviously.”

John threw it down on Sherlock’s clothed chest, “Get out, Sherlock!”

“I could hurt myself if I do it wrong, could I not?” Sherlock asked innocently, flinging the gloves at John. “Better if you did it.”

“How many times do I have to say “no” before you take the hint?” John asked in annoyance, trying and failing not to look at Sherlock’s erection. “…How long have you been erect?”

“A while,” Sherlock replied easily, bending his legs up calmly and then nudging John with his knee. “Just do it, John. You know I won’t stop until you do and if I do it myself then—”

John snapped on one of the gloves loudly to interrupt him and glowered as he shifted beside Sherlock and squeezed a little lube onto his fingers, rubbing them together. He knew he shouldn’t, there was no reason to do it, and he knew he could be just as stubborn as Sherlock was and throw him physically from his bedroom, but John merely pushed Sherlock’s knees wider and reached down between his friend’s legs slowly.

“When you loll and go limp from lethargy after this, I’m going to just push you onto the floor and go back to sleep, and you can just…spend the remainder of the night with your pyjama’s around your ankles on my bedroom carpet,” John muttered to him with a blush and a look of angered annoyance.

“At breakfast, I expect you to look over and then sign the contract—ah!” Sherlock said with a loud and high gasp as John massaged two fingers against his perineum and moved them down and around to locate Sherlock’s prostate. 

“I suppose it’s better that you’re…aroused, makes it easier to find,” John mumbled under his breath, keeping his gaze on Sherlock’s face before Sherlock’s brow furrowed in pleasure and John shifted his eyes to look elsewhere with a spike of embarrassment.

Sherlock’s thighs quivered as he grunted, “Feels good,” he whispered, gripping at John’s bed sheets and then grabbing John’s arm with a whine when John rubbed slowly and angled his hand a little better.

“Yeah, I know,” John told him tightly as he shifted next to Sherlock into a more comfortable position. “God…I shouldn’t be doing this—and I might not sign that bloody contract at breakfast. I can’t believe you even wrote it down. Can’t it remain verbal? What if someone were to find it and read it?”

“It…makes…sense to…create a…written…version because—Oh God…John…” Sherlock slurred and stammered with a panting groan as he writhed and then gripped John’s wrist with strong fingers. “Wait…stop…stop a moment.”

John pulled his hand away with a smug look, “See? What did I tell you? I’ve not even gotten started on a proper massage yet and already you’re a sweaty, squirming mess. You honestly think you could handle a vibrating…object against your prostate when you can hardly handle a little bit of pressure?”

Sherlock shuddered and lifted his head sluggishly to peer down at his erection, “Perhaps I…have a…sensitive prostate?” he wondered aloud, still slightly slurring his words as he let go of John to take hold of himself. 

“All prostates are sensitive, Sherlock,” John said with a roll of his eyes, trying desperately to ignore how positively excruciating and stupid the entire situation was. “You’ve obviously never touched it and…and you don’t know how good it can feel—Now, get out of my room and let me sleep.”

“What?”

“Get. Out. I’m not in the mood to deal with you or…or anything else! I want to sleep, Sherlock. I’m grumpy and…and angry and…and I want you to just go back to your room and leave me alone. We can talk in the morning…maybe, if I’m in a good enough mood to put up with your rubbish, which at this moment I very much doubt I will be.”

Sherlock frowned at him softly, “No, you—”

“You wanted me to show you, I have, you couldn’t take it and I am not about to lounge here getting you off another way just because you tell me to,” John said, noticing how flushed and slick Sherlock’s penis was. “Go deal with yourself in your own bedroom, with your own hands. I’m done.”

Sherlock took a few deep breaths, obviously calming himself but still unable to will away the colour of arousal on his cheeks, “Get me used to it, then. I can deal with it better if you—”

John narrowed his eyes and pushed his hand back into place abruptly, massaging with two fingers again with a slow and teasing friction that made Sherlock throw back his head and groan so loudly that John covered his mouth with his free hand quickly. Sherlock’s eyes rolled back and he squirmed wildly for a moment, grabbing and gripping at John’s arm and shoulder with a frantic and sudden thrusting of his hips that dislodged John’s fingers briefly. John stared down at Sherlock and half leaned over him as he continued to touch him relentlessly, slowly becoming engrossed with the way Sherlock was unable to open his eyes without them rolling back in his head in the next second.

“There is no way you’d be able to get used to this and pull off being stimulated in public without ending up as a twitching mess,” John told him lowly as Sherlock kicked his legs a little with desire and clawed at John’s arm with a deep but muffled moan. “You can barely think as it is, can you? Can’t think. Can’t control your body. Can’t focus your eyes. Can’t do anything. Can’t even stop yourself from coming…can you?”

Sherlock whimpered and wantonly began bucking and grinding against John’s fingers, as his face and neck got redder with his building pleasure. John removed his hand from Sherlock’s mouth and checked his pulse as he pushed his fingers harder against Sherlock’s perineum, against his prostate, and made short circular motions as Sherlock suddenly touched and clutched John’s throat and pyjama top.

“Ah! Fuh-fuck!” Sherlock shouted with a choked and shuddering whine as he rocked his hips feverishly and then curved tautly with a long and vulgar groan in orgasm.

John moaned lowly and swallowed, watching Sherlock fill the condom violently and rubbing at him a little longer to prolong the pleasure before John pulled his hand away and sat back, leaving Sherlock writhing and twitching, still in the throes of climax.

Sherlock wheezed and gasped, quivering seemingly with no control over his body, and touched and reached for John at random intervals. John removed his glove and grabbed Sherlock’s hand, holding onto him as Sherlock sluggishly tried to look at John until his eyes rolled back into his head again.

“You all right?” John asked quietly, squeezing Sherlock’s hand and then clearing his throat with a spark of guilt and awkwardness. “Do you need some water? Sherlock?”

“John,” Sherlock exhaled almost inaudibly, looking as if randomly fell unconscious only to jerk back into consciousness again. “John…”

“Yeah?” John asked, leaning close and forcing a smile. “You okay, Sherlock? Took a bit out of you, huh? I did tell you. I told you that it’s completely different and that you might not be able to just…brush it aside and remain composure—Hey, look at me, you okay? Sherlock?”

Sherlock nodded and frowned, closing his eyes when they still were unable to focus properly, “M’fine…” he mumbled, still faintly juddering. “Sleepy…might…sleep…”

“Let’s get you back to bed then.”

“Can’t move. Sleep here…”

John sighed, “No. You will not sleep here—don’t make me actually push you over the edge of the bed onto the floor, Sherlock.”

John moved closer when Sherlock’s hand went limp and relaxed in his and shook Sherlock’s shoulder slightly, “Sherlock? Sherlock, wake up. Wake up, now. Don’t you dare fall asleep in my bed—God sake Sherlock!”

John looked over Sherlock’s slumbering form with exasperation and dropped his hand to pull Sherlock’s pyjama bottoms up and over his still throbbing, condom covered erection with a flush. Sherlock murmured as John turned the beside lamp off and put the lube and gloves aside, and John gave him one last shake and nudge, before turning around and trying to slip off to sleep himself.

“Bloody idiot.”


	5. Stained

The morning started with Sherlock pushed up against John’s chest, snoring softly and drooling across John’s collarbone, and John glared and shoved him away. Sherlock was still faintly boneless from the night and snorted with a frown, curling onto his side to face away from John, his pyjama bottoms twisted on his waist in such a way that John noticed he was sporting yet another erection. John was determined to ignore it and Sherlock for the remainder of the day, and got up roughly, walking to the bathroom to brush his teeth, shower and then shave.

As he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror John questioned his sanity, his morals, and lastly his sexuality, if just for a brief moment. John thought of Sherlock’s penis with a deep contortion of his mouth and a roll of his stomach, and wondered what the hell was wrong with him and why the hell he continued to touch Sherlock sexually. He thought of Sherlock’s words, of how Sherlock continued to remind John that his hand turned Sherlock on, got him off, and how he liked John’s arms and mouth, and the way John moved and stood. John swallowed thickly and looked down at his hand as he remembered the way it had felt when Sherlock had rubbed against it, slicking the skin of John’s palm and fingers with ejaculate, only to then lick it all off with a long and wicked tongue, his cheeks flushed and his pupils blown.

“Shit,” John breathed, and clenched his eyes shut, gripping the basin in front of him tightly.

Sherlock as a sexual being was unreservedly new and shocking, and although John had seen and heard Sherlock in the height of pleasure, he still couldn’t get his head around it, couldn’t comprehend why Sherlock had suddenly found his libido after so long. He partly blamed himself, for giving in to Sherlock, like he always did, but he mostly blamed Sherlock, blamed him for not understanding what any of what they had done meant. Did Sherlock not realise how outrageous everything was? Did he not see that he seemed to becoming addicted to John because John was weirdly adept at making him experience orgasm?

John’s mind flashed unabashed with images of Sherlock’s crumpled, blushing face and open mouth, with his curls stuck to his temples and his rolling eyes; and he huffed through his nose and looked back up at his own reflection again, noting the colour of his cheeks with a cold churning in his gut. 

When he returned to his bedroom in a towel to change, Sherlock was still in his bed, wrapped up in his blankets messily, “Sherlock… Sherlock? Sherlock, wake up and get out of my bed.”

“Not until you read through and sign the contract,” Sherlock replied from where his head was tucked under his arm. “I know you want to snub it and possibly me, but I’d very much like it if you weren’t extremely idiotic and signed the piece of paper.”

“Idiotic? Me? I’m idiotic?”

“Yes. I’m glad you agree,” Sherlock countered smugly.

“You—” John cut himself off and stormed over indignantly, throwing the covers back. “Get out of my bed and out of my room. I won’t be signing that stupid thing no matter how long you badger me. It’s completely senseless, Sherlock. All of it! I’m not signing it!”

Sherlock looked up at him and huffed, “It’s not stupid—it gives you what you want.”

“How does it?”

“You don’t want to do this any longer than you have to, correct?”

John paced along the side of the bed and adjusted his towel when it slipped, “I’d rather not do this at all, Sherlock! You really think I want to spend my days wanking you off? Even a month? I have better things to be doing.”

“Like?” Sherlock snorted. “Your life revolves around me.”

“…What did you say?”

“Am I wrong?” Sherlock exclaimed as he sat up and gave John a haughty, perceptive look that made him clench his jaw and fist his hands. “Without me, where would you be, what would you be doing? You owe me. You owe me so much. I helped you, so why can’t you help me in return? Without me, you’d still have a tremor in your hand, you’d still have that pathetic limp, and you’d still be suffering night terrors and living in that abysmal bedsit. Alone. Damaged. Unappreciated.”

“Oh, you appreciate me, do you?” John growled, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he grabbed Sherlock’s arm and all but dragged him from the bed. “Since when? Because I hardly ever feel appreciated, Sherlock!”

Sherlock glanced down at John’s hand as he stumbled to his feet, “What are you talking about? I appreciate you.”

“When?”

“All the time!”

“Ha! Right, of course. I’m positively overflowing with appreciation, watch out, I may drown,” John intoned sarcastically, unable to make himself let go of Sherlock’s arm and adjusting his grip instead with a pinched and incensed expression. “Name one time that you showed me any sort of appreciation, any at all?”

Sherlock snarled suddenly and grabbed at his mussed curls, “Stop saying that word! Do you know of no other way to say it? Here, let me help you; gratitude; gratefulness; recognition; thankfulness, and acknowledgement. Any of these will do!” 

“Stop trying to avoid the question!”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

John lifted his brow pointedly and his grin was all teeth, “Yes, yes, you are. Answer it, Sherlock. Name one time. Just one. Surely you can do that? If you’ve appreciated me so much over the span of our friendship then you must have dozens of times where you’ve done so to choose from, no?”

“Well,” Sherlock started in mock thought as he gestured with the one arm that John still had hold of, rubbing John’s fingers into the bulge in his pyjama’s when he signalled to it, “there was the Viagra incident. I was fairly thankful to you for that.”

“Try again—and stop that!”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sighed, looking fairly bothered, “I told you that I valued all you do for me when I first mentioned the arrangement; don’t you remember? Furthermore, I said that I’d be more than willing to repay the favour, to which you almost went ballistic and then changed the subject—Also I once made you tea.”

“…When?”

“When you came home from a dreadful day of work, honey,” Sherlock replied mockingly, fluttering his eyelashes, and then abruptly glaring and pulling with a sudden jerk from John’s grasp to walk out the room. “If I’ve been so horrid to you, why do you stay, then? Why don’t you just go?”

John trailed after him, but paused in his bedroom doorway, “Maybe I should? Maybe I will!”

“Good! Go!” Sherlock shouted back up to him childishly as he stomped down the stairs and slammed the door to the sitting room closed. The door opened again just a few seconds later and Sherlock walked to the bottom of the stairs with a scowl. “Sign the contract and come down…I’m making you tea. There. Happy?”

“Immensely,” John retorted with an eye roll and a slam of his own door.

Throwing down his towel, John dressed and then grabbed for the piece of paper, reading back over it as he threw away the gloves and pocketed the lube. Sherlock had written the contract on the back of the electric bill for the flat, his handwriting messy and frantic, and his signature falling from the bottom edge slightly. It looked to have been written in a hurry, with Sherlock half asleep but eager to get it out before he forgot it, like you would an extremely satisfying dream.

Although clearly rushed, the contract was professional and detailed; yet simple enough to understand and fit the size of the paper it was written on. John eyed the start and end date of the chosen span of time and shook his head with a grumble. Giving it a timeline and writing it out, made it all the more daunting, and John disliked how intensely it made him panic as he stared at it all in black and white. 

“Have you signed it?” Sherlock asked around his mouthful of toast when John stepped foot into the kitchen. 

“No.” John answered shortly.

Sherlock sighed, “Why not?”

“I’m not going to sign it, Sherlock,” John glared as he picked up the tea Sherlock had made for him, taking a tentative sip and then putting it back down with a grimace. “How much sugar did you put in that? Jesus—”

“Why won’t you sign it? I did it for you,” Sherlock justified, slouching in his chair, making the bulge in his pyjamas even more noticeable. “This is perfect for you. I made sure of it.”

John poured his tea down the drain and filled the kettle to make another, “How is it? This is all for you, not for me. You’re the one getting off whenever you feel the need. You’re just thinking about yourself, as usual.”

Sherlock fell silent huffily and then got up and flounced around the table to stand at John’s side, his head almost resting on his shoulder, “You don’t want to keep doing this, and you want to date, correct?”

“You think that changes the fact that—?”

“Correct?”

“Yeah?”

“Right,” Sherlock nodded, pulling the contract from where John had folded it into his back pocket and waving it in John’s face. “This allows you to do that. You can cancel our agreement at any time, of course, but if you don’t, if you do it for the month required then this states what exactly you can do to me and for me, and what my aspirations are on the certain procedures—”

“This is complete and utter rubbish,” John mumbled as he batted the paper away and turned his back to Sherlock with a dark look. “You said yourself that it won’t be daily, this…this thing, so what if you don’t need my assistance for the entire month? Then what?—Christ, I can’t discuss this with you. Not now. Not ever.” 

Sherlock dropped his head against the back of John’s neck, “I wrote this out to give you more leeway, to make you more comfortable and to set some rules or guides to work from—” 

“I have leeway. I can decline it and you at any time! We don’t need a bloody written contract!”

“Didn’t you say that you were worried that I may edit the arrangement to my own means and it then becomes something else?” Sherlock reminded him speaking against John’s nape, and then moving his head to the side of John’s so their temples brushed as he brought the contract back around and flapped it into John’s face once more. “This prevents me from changing anything—Although I wouldn’t do that anyway.”

“You already have changed things! We established this last night; you added… certain things, one of which you can’t deal with,” John stated, pushing the paper away with his hand with more force, crumpling it. “Look, stop it, we’re just going round in circles. I won’t sign. End of.”

“…What if I changed it to three months and took out the sex toy segment?”

“No, Sherlock!”

Sherlock released the contract to the kitchen counter and watched John prepare his own tea before speaking again, “What do you want then?”

“Right now, I want you to back off and shut up.”

“…Are you sexually frustrated?” Sherlock asked with a presuming tone, stepping back when John span around to stare at him in bewilderment, his mouth working in disbelief as he spluttered. “That’s not precisely a no, John.”

John glared at him furiously for three seconds and then dropped his gaze, “Are you? You’re the one with the—wait, are you still wearing the condom from…from last night?”

Sherlock blinked and pulled the waistband of his pyjamas aside, “…Yes.”

“That’s disgusting, go take it off.”

“You take it off.”

John huffed and tried to stifle his sudden smile with a roll of his eyes, “Sherlock, come on, go take it off.”

Sherlock reached in with one hand without leaving the kitchen to do so, and John made a loud noise of displeasure and repulsion, “It’s half off anyway—”

John grabbed his arm and steered him around and out towards the bathroom, “You, are revolting, do you know that?”

“This may be the largest quantity of emission that I’ve ever produced,” Sherlock mumbled with his head bowed, staring down into his pyjama bottoms with a look of pure fascination and then flashing a grin in John’s direction. “I suppose it makes sense. You were pressing on my prostate.” 

John cringed and pushed him a little further towards the bathroom, “Stop talking, Sherlock…just go and…sort yourself out.”

Sherlock grabbed John’s wrist before John could turn and leave, and pulled him in close, “If you are saying no to the contract, are you saying no to the whole arrangement altogether?” 

Sighing, John looked up into Sherlock’s face and followed the soft crease between his brows with his eyes with a swell of affection and an uncomfortable heat, “…No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Sherlock studied John and loosened his hold but didn’t let go, “All right,” he said softly, frowning. “Do you know when you’ll be most likely to end it?”

John shook his head with a blush, “I don’t know. We’ll…see—but don’t think you can just show up in my room or…or…grind against my hand at a crime scene and expect me to just…give in to you.”

“I can’t very well stride over to you and ask you to touch me, out loud, can I?” Sherlock scoffed before he tilted his head, peered at John through his mussed fringe and had the audacity to look coy and mischievous at the same time. “Although—Will you…do it now?” 

John felt his stomach flutter strongly and narrowed his eyes, “Do what now?”

“You know what. Touch me?” Sherlock requested gently, drawing John a little closer and removing the condom with his other hand, lobbing it into the bathroom bin behind him with perfect skill and accuracy.

Sherlock held his waistband open to John, both as an invitation and a plea, and John looked at the flushed, shiny head of Sherlock’s penis instantly. John was slightly impressed that Sherlock had held a conversation so casually when he was walking about with a furious looking erection, one that was apparently trembling with each beat of Sherlock’s heart. It twitched under John’s gaze, oozing pre-ejaculate, and Sherlock’s stomach tensed as the thick droplet ran the length of his shaft in a teasingly, moist trail.

John looked away, sighed, shifted his stance, and then reached his hand into Sherlock’s pyjamas and curled his fingers around Sherlock’s hard and slick penis without a word or thought. Sherlock took a pleased and shuddering breath and rocked his hips, pushing into John’s fist with a wet and obscenely significant sound. He gazed down at John as he moved and then reached out, carding his fingers through John’s hair with a hooding of his eyes. John blinked at the sight and cleared his throat, loudly and uncomfortably, and tried not to stare at how they looked reflected together in the bathroom mirror. 

It was awkward and shameless, and John tried hastily to ignore the stirring in his own groin at the sounds his hand made as he increased the speed and changed the angle, giving his wrist a faint twist. The scent of Sherlock’s arousal was thick in the air and John hated that he was already well accustomed and intimately familiar with it.

“I like your hair too,” Sherlock commented offhandedly, focusing on the way his nails shifted through the strands as he rutted with increasing desire into John’s working hand, grasping the hair at the back of John’s head as he moaned low in his throat and looked down to watch with an explosion of colour in his neck and face. 

“Um. Thanks,” John muttered uneasily with another twist of his wrist that made Sherlock clutch at him harder. “I…like your hair as well. It’s…bouncy.”

Sherlock glanced up with a burst of deep laughter that transformed half way into a bitten off groan and tugged the bottle of lube from John’s pocket, “Do you need this?”

John flicked a quick glance at it and shook his head, “No. You’re slick enough…”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied with a hiss with more colour on his cheeks, dropping the bottle thoughtlessly. “You’re going to make me come all over you.”

“Sherlock, don’t say things like that! Jesus Christ!” John balked, glancing around even though they were both alone in the doorway of their bathroom. “And you better not do that… at all, do you hear me?”

“Will you stimulate my—?” 

John forced his eyes up to Sherlock’s, “Not unless you want to crumple to a heap on the floor?”

Sherlock seemed to consider it for a moment and then shrugged, “No. I suppose not…” he conceded. “Not right now, at least.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sherlock breathed heavily with a slow smile and played with John’s hairline, his other hand resting on John’s shoulder as a warm, comfortable weight. John blushed and turned his head away, concentrating on the way Sherlock’s cock felt against his fingers before he realised how wrong that was and shifted his attention to the movement and flexing of his hand instead, aiming for clinical and proficient, but ending up firm and slightly zealous. He traced the veins with the pad of his finger without thought and squeezed and rubbed up Sherlock’s length.

Sherlock’s erection throbbed in John’s hand, “…I liked you over me.”

John stared in unreserved bewilderment, “What? Sherlock, you’re not making sense. You can’t just stop and start conversations haphazardly.” 

“Last night,” Sherlock whispered as he brushed his fingers through John’s hair again, sending tingles up John’s spine. “You leaned over me. I liked it.” 

“Oh…right,” John mumbled, unsure of what else to say as he teased Sherlock’s hardened skin and stroked his thumb across his red and weeping head. 

Sherlock leaned his head back with a tremor, arching his throat, and then bent forward to push their foreheads together when John moved his hand faster still, teasing Sherlock’s hot and swollen glans with a faint sound that rumbled in his chest. Sherlock grunted in reply and shuffled closer, and John watched his own tanned and wet hand as it stroked and clenched around his best friend’s penis.

“Yes,” Sherlock panted gutturally and snapped his hips forwards to push into John’s fist passionately. “M-make me come…”

“Quiet,” John shushed with a sudden scowl, covering Sherlock’s mouth with his free hand and then inhaling sharply when Sherlock bit at one of his fingers with a gentle and playful pressure. “Oi! Don’t…don’t do that.”

Sherlock huffed against John’s hand and thrust eagerly, “No one’s going to hear me,” he wheezed, eyes on the way he appeared and disappeared through the clench of John’s fingers. “….I’m close. I’m going to—”

“Don’t speak,” John muttered and tapped Sherlock’s mouth with his fingers sharply as he increased the movement of his stroking. “…You don’t have to bloody tell me. If you can keep silent at a crime scene, you can keep silent now.”

Sherlock tightened his lips and groaned, “That’s different.”

“How?” John asked with a sigh.

Sherlock looked at John and John couldn’t look away from the way his eyes were glazed and darkened with lust, “I have to keep silent then, I have no choice because we weren’t alone… but we’re alone now.”

John wobbled on his feet and Sherlock tilted his head, pressing their brows together a little more whilst staring at John up close and then dropping his gaze slowly to John’s mouth. A strong stab of blinding anticipation and adrenaline ignited through John’s chest, making his heart stutter and his hand grip harder, and Sherlock exhaled hotly over the lower half of John’s face with such unrestrained longing that John moaned under his breath.

When Sherlock began to rut erratically and widen his stance, John swallowed, pulled back and looked around, trying to reach for the roll of toilet paper as Sherlock keened and gripped his hair and shoulder. Sherlock, trembling fiercely in building pleasure, abruptly paused his movements with a clenched jaw and let go of John’s shoulder to push his pyjama bottoms down over his hips to expose more of his crotch. John froze and watched as they fell then to his ankles, and wet his lips unconsciously when Sherlock rocked into his hand with gathering speed, whining through his teeth and gasping. Sherlock was transfixed on the sight of John’s hand around him and stared, unblinkingly, until he convulsed.

“Oh God,” Sherlock whimpered and rolled his hips, bucking unsteadily, gripping at John’s hair, and then pushing his suddenly pulsing penis out the clasp of John’s fingers to spill hot and fast up John’s shirt.

“Shit! Sherlock, you…” John exclaimed in a stutter as Sherlock’s cock spurted another three times, splattering up to catch John’s chin and then dribbling thickly over his flexing fingers.

Sherlock shivered and lifted his head, pushing his panting mouth into John’s hair, and laughed quietly, “I…did warn you that you were going to make me—”

“Shut up.” John complained as he slowly let go of Sherlock’s still twitching penis, cringing when more ejaculate leaked and then dropped to the floor and in the crumpled material of Sherlock’s pyjamas. “You did that on purpose…pull up your bloody trousers!”

Sherlock nodded with a drowsy grin but swayed for a moment, playing with John’s hair and breathing into his temple, “What would I do without you,” he said huskily.

“Get off on your own, like a normal person,” John retorted as he tried to ignore the way Sherlock’s lips felt brushing against his skin and how Sherlock’s ejaculate was soaking warmly through his shirt with a twinge and a grimace. “…I liked this shirt.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do…a little.”

Sherlock shifted back to look down at it, “I think I made it better.”

“You’re such a git!”


	6. Three Months

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going away on holiday for a week starting the Saturday (22nd), so I quickly got this ready to post!
> 
> I hope you like it!  
> Things are changing and shifting even more between the two men now it seems! Are you excited? I'm excited!
> 
> Also, I may be taking my laptop with me on holiday, so I might be writing and posting whilst away, however, I may write more than post, so when I get back I have a lot of things to offer.
> 
> At the same time, I might not even get time to write. We shall see!
> 
> ...I wrote a lot on this chapter...

John wasn’t sure where the contract went, but he didn’t see it again, and that terrified him beyond all reason. Had Sherlock put it in the bin? It had John’s name on it, it had Sherlock’s signature on it, and it had a very detailed description of what Sherlock wanted John to do for him on the back of their unpaid electric bill. John had searched the sitting room for it, the kitchen, the bathroom, his own room and even Sherlock’s, but had come up empty handed each and every time. It had driven John round the bend after only thirty minutes, and he had later exploded at a nonplussed looking Sherlock, who had merely shrugged at him and turned back to the book he was reading upside-down as John had rooted through the bin and rechecked all the places he had already searched.

After the wet and messy grope in the bathroom, Sherlock had strolled off with a contented sigh and John had returned to his room to change, not thinking about how some of Sherlock’s ejaculate had soaked through to stain his skin and how he had simply rubbed it in and pulled a jumper on without batting an eyelid. When he had made his way back to the kitchen to pick up his cold tea it had been then when he had noticed the missing contract, and although he had not thought much of it at first, he had later decided the missing paper was actually quite bad. In the end, however, it had not been located and John hoped to God that it had somehow been burnt or soaked with acid or torn into pieces so small that there was no way that anyone could put it back together again.

In a way, it might have been a good thing that John had made Sherlock forget about and then lose the contract, because just as John had expected, Sherlock did not go to John for anything sexual for what added up to be two and a half months and counting, and instead spent the time brooding and moping around the flat, blowing things up in the kitchen and staining a patch of carpet near the window with some mysterious liquid that John really did not want to know anything about. 

The only time that John had thought Sherlock would ask something of him, was when Sherlock had glanced over the newspaper at him on an early Wednesday morning with a slow smile and minute darkening of his eyes that shot sparks and sparks of anticipation and slick eagerness up John’s spine, but nothing had come of it, and Sherlock’s gaze had dropped back to what he was reading. It left John feeling cold and disappointed and he had cleared his throat and turned to wash up to keep his mind off it.

After the third month without any sexual behaviour, on the way back to the flat after a very disheartening case involving a hot air balloon, Sherlock stopped dead outside the front door and groaned with a scowl, staring at the knocker with such a narrowed gaze that John lifted his eyebrows and peered closely at it, expecting there to be something monumentally wrong to make Sherlock’s mood sour further than it already had done.

“What?” He asked when nothing odd jumped out at him.

“Mycroft is here,” Sherlock snarled and grabbed the knocker, twisting it aside with a squeak, before he stormed inside, up the stairs and into the living room with a look of thunder. “Out.”

Mycroft peered over at Sherlock from his perch on Sherlock’s chair, his legs crossed elegantly and his hands folded on his lap, “Ah. It’s lovely to see you too, brother mine.”

“Out!” Sherlock shouted, pointing at the door and then dropping his arm when Mycroft eyed him slowly and shifted his gaze to John with an arching of one perfect eyebrow. “Get. Out. Mycroft. Whatever it is that you—”

“I came to see you, Sherlock. Nothing more,” Mycroft said smoothly, still looking at John and then smiling tightly when John motioned at him in question. “How is everything, John? I imagine Sherlock can still be quite the…handful?”

Sherlock stiffened and paled, then looked suddenly murderous and strode over to loom above him, “Leave.”

Mycroft glanced up at him, not in the least bit threatened by Sherlock’s posture and sneering face, and blinked slowly. John looked on, feeling awkward and antsy, as the brothers seemed to communicate without words and ignored John entirely for five intense minutes. Mycroft’s tight smile relaxed and then softened for a split second, and Sherlock looked away, stalking to stand facing the fireplace with tensed shoulders. Mycroft watched him silently and John shifted with discomfort, folding and then unfolding his arms, not knowing exactly what he should do and eyeing the way Sherlock’s fingers twitched when Mycroft sighed deeply.

“Must we really be witness to such dramatics,” Mycroft said to shatter the thick silence in the room that even John could feel. “I’m only looking out for your best interests.”

“You’re meddling, brother dear,” Sherlock spat, locking gazes with John in the mirror and then turning with a glower. “You never pop over just to “see” me, and nothing more. What is it you want? Say it quickly so I can just as quickly dismiss you.”

Mycroft pursed his lips and then glanced at John again briefly, “Perhaps we can talk, in private?”

“Private?” Sherlock repeated with a scrunch of his face before he followed Mycroft’s gaze and shook his head. “No. John stays. John always stays. Just say what you’re here to say—”

“No, it’s…” John interrupted with a tense smile as he tried not to pay attention to the way Mycroft stared at him. “…it’s okay. I need to have a shower anyway.”

“Don’t leave me alone with him,” Sherlock whined with an exaggerated pleading expression that John waved off and ignored. “John, if you come back to find him disembowelled, it’ll be all your doing!”

“I can live with that,” John mumbled with a one-shouldered shrug and a broad smile directed at Mycroft, which made the man smirk contemptuously with a very faint tilt of his mouth. “Just try not to get blood on my chair, again.”

John left the two brothers alone and moved to the bathroom, stripping off with a long sigh and a shake of his head as he turned on the shower and looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t sure how to take what Mycroft had said or how Mycroft had looked at him and quickly shook it all aside. He wasn’t bothered by the fact that Mycroft wanted to talk to Sherlock privately, it had happened before, some super, special, secret missions that Sherlock had always discussed with John afterward without hint of shame or worry. It meant Sherlock was probably going to be leaving though, traveling somewhere undisclosed abroad for a variable amount of time, which meant that John would be alone in the flat, alone and waiting with his heart in his throat and his hand clutching at his mobile. 

Stepping into the shower, John turned his face up into the warm spray and slumped his shoulders. The case with the hot air balloon had left him aching and smelling of fuel and sweat, and he rubbed at his nape and poured a large handful of shower gel into his palm, slicking it over his skin methodically. John remembered the sights from the height at which they had climbed and touched the bruise at his arm and back where he’d connected with the edge of the basket of the hot air balloon. 

Sherlock had spooked the 6ft 4 perpetrator and after a five minute chase with Sherlock sprinting like an athlete with a pinched face and sharp eyes, the man had leapt into his hot air balloon with Sherlock and John hot on his heels. They had fought hard, all three of them, and only when John was kicked aside had he noticed that they were no longer on the ground. He had called out in shock and anxiety, and Sherlock had rolled his eyes and controlled the balloon in between punches, like it took no effort at all to coordinate a heavy basket full of flailing, fighting grown men whilst being in the thick of the conflict himself. The only time Sherlock left the fighting to John was when they had almost collided with an oak tree. 

It wasn’t long after that when they had hit the ground so roughly that the basket had tipped and they’d toppled out, scrambling across a muddy field with Sherlock skidding on his knees to wrestle the man to the ground. John huffed at the memory and grinned inwardly, recalling the way Sherlock’s face had twisted when his coat was smeared and dirtied.

John was so preoccupied in his thoughts that he didn’t know someone had entered the bathroom until the shower curtain was drawn roughly aside. With a curse and a tensed, forceful flinch, John whipped around to be faced with a sombre looking Sherlock, his mouth downturned and his annoyed gaze on John’s wet face. John frowned angrily and reached out to push Sherlock back, pulling the curtain closed so roughly that he feared it might break from the rings that held it.

“Sherlock, what the hell!” John shouted over the sound of the shower, rubbing water from his brow as he took a step back, his heart in his throat and a rippling cascade of excitement and fervour rushing through his body, that heated his skin and made his hand and fingers twitch knowingly.

Sherlock’s silhouette heaved a great sigh that rolled his shoulders, “It’s not as if I’ve not seen you naked before, John—and you’ve certainly seen me.” 

“And you think that gives you the right to just—?”

“Yes!”

“Well it doesn’t!” John countered, already breathing heavily as he watched Sherlock’s silhouette pace shortly before the shower, stop, turn on the spot, and then suddenly burst into movement. “What—what are you doing? No. Sherlock, don’t you bloody dare!”

Sherlock ignored him and undressed with violent and moody jerks of his arms, his shirt catching on his wrists, “I’m dirty. Perhaps more so than you—I was the one whom fell into the mud puddle in my haste to catch that slippery bastard of an accountant!”

John threw his hands up and looked frustrated at the tiled wall, “Then wait! I’ll be done in a few minutes!”

“Think of the water bill.”

“You don’t pay the bleedin’ water bill!”

The curtain was pulled aside again and Sherlock stepped in beside him, completely naked, with a wide and supercilious grin stretching his face, “Exactly.”

John stepped back and covered his privates automatically, “Sherlock. Get. Out.”

Sherlock shifted under the showerhead and blocked all water from reaching John, “No.”

“Fine,” John growled through gritted teeth. “I’ll go then.”

“No,” Sherlock repeated, grabbing John’s bare bicep and bending down to allow some of the spray to hit John in the face, “Stay.”

“Sherlock,” John said warningly, blinking the water from his eyes and turning his head aside to glare at Sherlock sidelong. “You can’t just leave your brother in the living room and share a shower with me—”

“Mycroft is gone,” Sherlock told him as he rubbed some of the shower gel into John’s arm with sudden fascination, his fingers trailing through the liquid and then drawing complex patterns over John’s skin as he moved them up to John’s injured shoulder with a tilt of his chin. “I kicked him out.”

John watched Sherlock, knowing he should really stop him from touching, and then glanced at Sherlock’s hand as it skimmed over the bullet wound, “…What did he want?”

Sherlock shrugged, “Wasn’t listening—”

“Sherlock!”

“Some political drivel about MI6,” Sherlock sighed, licking water droplets from the corner of his mouth, “He wishes for me to look into something for him. He left a folder. A very hefty folder. It’s all very tedious—he also informed me that my Aunt has recently passed.”

John looked up sharply and frowned, “What? Your Aunt?”

Sherlock nodded and reached for the shower gel himself, slicking his hands, “A shame really. I was sure she’d last several years more. She was strong-willed and stubborn, and she used to hide sweets for me to find when I was a child with hand drawn maps. Like a treasure hunt. I really liked her.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” John said softly, regarding the way Sherlock shrugged one shoulder higher than the other and then roughly washed at his own body. “You okay?”

Sherlock shot him an aggravated look, “Fine.”

“All right,” John huffed, wiping water from his cheeks and then glancing from Sherlock to the bathroom door and back, before he pulled the curtain closed a little bit more with a motion of submission and continued washing, turning his back to Sherlock in the small space available, knowing that he was crazy but unable to face it.

Sherlock smiled at him, one of his small genuine smiles that always made something in John’s chest flare, “I rather hurt my shoulder quite tremendously in the fall…”

“I noticed—Fine. Just this once though, let’s not make a habit of it. Turn around,” John grumbled, twitching aside when Sherlock thrust the shower gel in his direction with a look of impatient eagerness. “I must be out of my mind…”

Sherlock grinned at him suddenly and dazzlingly, and turned away to present the long, pale expanse of his back, the bumps of his spine pushing up through his skin as he bowed his head to wet more of his hair and wash the mud from his legs. Sherlock’s back was riddled with growing bruises and red scratches from the earlier tussle, and John leaned forward to inspect them, checking his ribs and the purpling mark at his shoulder, before he squirted the gel on him and began scrubbing him clean, keeping his gaze up and clenching his jaw. 

John hated himself for giving in so easily to Sherlock, for doing anything and everything just to be able to get his hands on him in some way. It was confusing and scary how much John wanted to touch and clutch and grope and control his flatmate, and John tried not to let the raising lump of panic take him over as he meticulously cleaned his best friend’s nude back. He wasn’t gay, he wasn’t, and yet he had wanted Sherlock to ask him for a “helping hand” for three months. Although, at the same time, he also wanted Sherlock to completely forget about the arrangement and to go back to how things were before, when they didn’t share showers, and when John didn’t eagerly await the moment to get Sherlock off. He was chaotic and anxious and cross, and he couldn’t seem to deal with any of the thoughts that whizzed around in his head. Things had been so much simpler and less frightening before Sally had drugged Sherlock’s drink and started some strange chain reaction that boosted Sherlock’s sexual appetite and sexual curiosity. 

“Stop complaining,” Sherlock protested deeply.

“I haven’t said anything.”

Sherlock shot a glance over his shoulder, “You’re thinking.”

“Right. Of course. I am so terribly sorry,” John rolled his eyes and slapped his hand on one particular angry looking bruise, twisting his finger if only to see Sherlock flinch and grunt with a frown, trying to swat John away but then pull him back to keep washing his back. “I just think this is…detrimental and weird—”

“You’ve said that an awful lot,” Sherlock told him, bending his head again when he dropped the cap of the shower gel onto the shower floor and reached down for it without hesitation, the muscles in his back flexing once he straightened up again. “Weird. What’s weird about sharing a shower to keep costs down? Are you really telling me that you have never showered with other men before? I find that hard to believe, John. Very hard.”

John glowered at him, noticed the dimples above Sherlock’s backside when Sherlock twisted to look at him, and turned away, “Keeping costs down…you’re so full of crap, Sherlock. Since when have you been worried about the costs of anything?”

“Fine. I wanted to shower with you,” Sherlock acknowledged, not turning fully around and straining to look at John over his shoulder. “Better?”

“No!”

Sherlock stared at him and arched his eyebrow, “Why?”

“Now who’s the one always asking stupid questions?” John griped and pushed Sherlock’s face around angrily with his gel-slicked fingers. “Stop looking at me.” 

Sherlock sighed and then adjusted his stance in such a recognisable and telling way that John felt an impulsive, maddening eruption of anticipation. He watched as Sherlock put the gel down and reached to grab John’s wrist, pulling John’s hand until John took an unsteady step closer to him, his front inches away from Sherlock’s back. John glared feebly and tried to tug his hand back, however Sherlock only increased his grip and yanked it around his body, curling it then over the obvious shape of Sherlock’s growing erection. John froze with his nose only just brushing the wet skin of Sherlock’s shoulders and blinked, swallowing thickly when Sherlock let him go and pushed slowly into the loose ring of his fingers with a pleasured moan.

“I certainly didn’t do this with other men,” John murmured in a pointless sort of way, weakly and mentally fighting to take his hand away only to leave it limply encasing Sherlock’s thickening, wet penis. “Sherlock…”

“Good,” Sherlock replied, taking John’s other hand and shuffling back to press bodily into John’s naked front. “Use both hands.”

John laughed breathlessly into Sherlock’s spine, pushing his chin into him roughly, “Sherlock…what did I say about asking permission?”

Sherlock turned his head, brushing drenched curls against John’s forehead, “I have to ask permission even when—?”

“Yes.”

“…Please can you use both hands to stimulate my penis until I ejaculate, John?” Sherlock asked in a monotone voice that had John shaking with laughter even as he slapped Sherlock’s stomach in reprimand. “I don’t see why I have to ask if you’re willing.”

John turned hesitantly and pressed his cheek into Sherlock’s back, “You can’t just grab me and—look, what did I tell you before? Just because I agreed to that damn arrangement doesn’t mean you can just do whatever you like, whenever you like, and I’ll just give in to you…”

“This is why we needed it written down,” Sherlock rumbled with amusement, tipping his head back to nudge John’s head and cover him with wet ringlets. “Can I at least be more vocal this time?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you need to be?”

Sherlock huffed with hilarity, “Because I can be. I want to be. I like it. Don’t you like it?”

“No,” John sighed, focusing suddenly on the way Sherlock’s skin quivered in goose flesh where he’d breathed. 

Sherlock rocked into John’s hand slickly and a little irritably, and John tightened his grip and moved his other hand around to Sherlock’s waist to stabilise himself against the shower floor. Sherlock whined in annoyance at the hand placement and wriggled, pushing the plush curve of his backside into John in the process, and tried to relocate John’s hand to his erection again with damp fingers, tapping and pulling at his wrist. John angled the lower half of his body away but gave in to Sherlock’s unremitting scrambling to cover Sherlock’s shaft with two of his hands in an oddly composed way, faintly grinning. It scared John how right it felt to hold Sherlock in such an intimate way; although he still felt wholly embarrassed and panicked by the entire situation, his body thrummed with calm willingness that warmed the skin of his cheeks, chest and stomach.

“…Does Mycroft know?” John asked quietly, wondering a second later if Sherlock had heard him over the sound of the shower and the low purr that Sherlock uttered when John teased the head of his cock with one hand and squeezed the base with the other.

“Must you mention my brother right at this moment?” Sherlock gasped with a shiver, rocking into John’s hands contentedly and settling his own hands on John’s forearms gently, stroking in time with his thrusts and then abruptly entwining their fingers.

John inhaled sharp but quiet and tried uselessly to overlook the rapid and dizzying rush of blood to his groin from the touch. The sensation of the two of them stroking Sherlock’s slippery cock was immensely erotic and John bit down on the inside of his cheek as he felt himself thicken and twitch in abrupt arousal. Sherlock’s fingers smoothed along John’s own and then trailed up his wrist and arm again in a swirling of circles and what felt like numbers and letters, before Sherlock gripped his elbows and tugged.

“I want you closer,” Sherlock demanded huskily, turning to glance back at John with a brief flicker of his eyes. 

John frowned and adjusted his grip, keeping his lower half canted away, determinedly not looking down, “No.” 

“Why not?” Sherlock asked in a rough groan as he clung to John’s arms and arched up into his hands when John squeezed and increased the pace, aiming to have Sherlock climax quickly so he would leave. “Ah! John! John—yes…”

John looked up and swallowed roughly as Sherlock bowed his head forward and bucked eagerly, exposing his nape and tensing his buttocks. Arousal ran fast and scorching through John’s veins at the sight, only made more intense by the way Sherlock matched John’s hand movements, fucking himself through the clench of John’s fingers eagerly, and stroking and caressing John’s arms as if hypnotised at the flexing of tendons.

“Be quiet.” John grunted. “Why must you make everything so…difficult and…and…?”

With a hitched scoff, Sherlock squirmed and reached one hand back to John’s naked hip, “Can’t you just come…a little closer?”

John shook his head and then licked the water from his lips, “No.”

“Please?”

“Saying “please” won’t get you everything you want all the time,” John groused as he automatically slipped his right hand down to caress Sherlock’s scrotum, not knowing in the next second if he had done so because it was a way to shut Sherlock up or because he was thinking about the first time he touched Sherlock and how he had felt under his hand. 

Sherlock’s cock twitched in reaction, “Why do you have me say it then? What’s the use of it if it doesn’t get me what I want?”

“It’s polite!” John grumbled.

Sherlock scoffed and after a gentle, rumbling moan, he pushed back and pressed up against John entirely, using his hand on John’s hip to slot along him as perfect as possible. The moment John’s erection collided with the pert curve of Sherlock’s backside, Sherlock inhaled sharply in shock and then suddenly arched in orgasm with a coarse shout, splattering the tiles thickly in long stripes. John felt himself throb in reply and was unable to stop the groan it triggered as he instinctively thrust to glide wetly up Sherlock’s contracting buttocks while Sherlock pulsed hard in his hand and fell back against him with a thrashing of limbs.

“Shit,” John growled through gritted teeth, holding onto Sherlock as he rutted and wriggled nonstop, trapping John’s penis between them with a delightfully pleasurable sensation of slick skin and heat that altered in pressure whenever Sherlock moved. “Sherlock…you’re going to slip…”

Carefully, John lowered Sherlock down to sit on the shower floor and hopped out, grabbing a towel and pulling it tight around his waist. He needed to get out and he struggled with the door handle with wet hands, smearing water, shower gel and ejaculate over everything he touched. His entire body was shaking and his heart was beating so hard and so fast, that he was sure Sherlock could hear it over the sound of the water. Panicking, John rubbed his hands on the towel briskly until they were dry and red and sore, and wiped the handle.

“Wait…wait, John,” Sherlock gasped and half crawled out of the shower to grab at John’s ankle. “Don’t go…don’t…” 

“Let go.”

“Was it me?” Sherlock asked, face slack with pleasure as he blinked water from his eyes and stroked up John’s vibrating leg. “Was it…was it the thought of—”

“No!” John exclaimed, kicking off Sherlock’s loosened grasp when he finally got the door open. He bolted out of the bathroom, trailing water behind him, and slammed the door to his bedroom shut, breathing wildly and leaning against it. John’s heart clenched and he glanced down at the protruding bulge of his penis under the towel with a twisting in his gut that made him feel faintly sick.

John heard Sherlock follow him, heard him slip and trip and curse, before Sherlock bumped into John’s door excitedly, “John!” 

“Go away, Sherlock.”

“I just need to know if—”

John slammed his hand against his door, “No! Nope. Not happening. Go. Away!”

“…But John—”

“Are you pressing your naked body against my door?”

“Yes.”

John glowered at the wood grain, “Go away. Get dry and get dressed, and just go away, Sherlock.”

Sherlock sighed loudly, “John, if you would just let me speak—”

“No, Sherlock, I told you…” John protested, shaking his head and smacking the door again as the growing blast of emotions made him unsteady. “Please, just…leave me alone. I can’t see you— I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. I just want you to go away.”

Sherlock was silent a moment and then slid what sounded like his hand up the other side of the door, “…I liked it.”

“Sherlock…”

“I just want to—”

“Go away!”


	7. Kissing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long but, well, I was on holiday (which was rubbish, and so robbed me of my creativity) and then I was struggling to get back into the swing of things for a while. Hopefully you shall forgive me and enjoy this very long chapter...
> 
> And yes, John can be a right arse sometimes, I know...but he is really confused and in denial so, let him off, yeah?

John held his breath and rushed out of his bedroom, down the stairs, and onto the landing. He had avoided Sherlock as much as he could since what had happened in the shower three days previous, and even though Sherlock had outsmarted and outmanoeuvred him quite a few times, had cornered John against his chair, the kitchen counter, and the fireplace, John had been successful in blocking out all that Sherlock had said to him concerning what had gone on in the shower and what Sherlock wanted to happen in the aftermath. John had also been quick to rip up a new written contract before Sherlock could predict his movements and save it, and John had used the moment Sherlock bent to pick up the pieces, to flee to his room.

However, John was slowly running out of steam, unable to keep up the wall around him and ignore both Sherlock and the tension that filled the flat whether Sherlock was around or not. John knew Sherlock was waiting for him again with clear intent, determined to goad John into discussing it and reminding John of every minuscule detail to prompt John to do it again. John looked around as he wriggled on his shoes and tried not to let the fact that he could feel the rapid pulse of his heart in his throat and the crushing guilt in his gut deter him from leaving the flat without so much as a goodbye. 

John stepped back when Sherlock appeared from the kitchen seconds later and John snatched quickly at his coat and all but sprinted from the flat and onto the pavement outside 221B, starting a brisk and powerful stride away without looking back, his heart still in his throat as he swung his coat on and stuffed his hands into his coat pockets.

“John! John, wait.” Sherlock called out behind him as he followed behind John in his pyjamas, not bothered about the chill of the morning and hefting a mug as a strange sort of peace offering. “John, you cannot ignore me forever. John we…I need to…will you just talk to me, or at least look at me?—I made you tea. Tea, John!”

John shook his head and pulled his arm from Sherlock’s suddenly scrabbling free hand, “No, Sherlock. Go back inside. I need to go to work…” he grumbled. “And even if I didn’t, I’d not drink that. Not unless I wanted to slip into a sugar induced coma…”

Sherlock was silent until John was almost to the end of the street, “I appreciate you!”

John stuttered to a stop and looked over his shoulder. Sherlock was standing bare foot on the pavement with his dressing gown whipping about his body in the sharp and biting wind, and his hair pushed into further disarray. His feet were turning red but Sherlock didn’t notice and stared at John with such intensity and open vulnerability that John was thrown for a moment and swallowed.

“I appreciate you a lot,” Sherlock said loudly, paying no heed to the people that glanced between them. “There. I said it. I said that dreadful word that you kept saying I never do—”

“Go back inside, Sherlock,” John told him with a blush and faced front again, pulling his coat closed when the wind picked up. 

“No,” Sherlock replied.

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock walked closer indignantly, “Promise that you’ll stop ignoring me.”

“Promise that you’ll stop hounding me!”

“I haven’t been—”

John turned fully around to face Sherlock with a look of disbelief and scoffed, “Yes, you have, Sherlock! Can’t you see that I don’t want to talk about…about what happened? And, you know what, I…I want out of our agreement. I said that I could stop it, could end it and decline you at any time, and so…I’m doing it. Right now. No more. It ends here. All right?”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed deeply and he tightened his lips, pressing them into such a firm, but wonky, line that all colour drained from his mouth, “No.”

John glared and pointed to the open door of the flat that Mrs. Hudson was peering out of with a worried expression, “Go back inside. We are not discussing this. It’s over, whether you like it or not.”

“John—”

“If you don’t stop pursuing this, I’ll leave,” John told him suddenly, and with one last look at the expression on Sherlock’s shuttering face, he walked off without a backward glance, grimacing and berating himself internally as the twist of guilt grew and tightened around his chest.

Only when John had successfully hailed down a cab did he look back towards the flat, and he winced with self-reproach when he saw Sherlock still standing out in the wind and staring at him. Sherlock’s face was emotionless and white and his arms were loose at his sides, the mug tipped and the tea spilt on the ground at his feet, which were just as blue as his fingers from the chill. Mrs. Hudson was touching Sherlock’s shoulder and talking to him but Sherlock didn’t reply, didn’t even move, not until John disappeared into the back of the cab, only then did Sherlock straighten his shoulders, turn on the spot and walk back into the flat with Mrs. Hudson close on his heels.

John tried to push the image of Sherlock watching him from the pavement out of his mind and spent the rest of the day deeply embedded in patients and paperwork, trying to find more and more to occupy his mind and dreading the moment he had to go home with each passing second. John stayed as late as he could, so late that Sarah eyed him with suspicion and worry, and then made his way back slowly. He walked the entire way instead of signalling for a taxi and dragged his feet, rubbing at the painful ache of guilt that still churned and squeezed his chest, and hoping that either Sherlock had taken the hint to stop pestering him or had deleted everything about their silly arrangement altogether. Although, the thought of Sherlock no longer yearning for John’s touch made John feel immeasurably dissatisfied and lonely.

With a deep breath John opened the door to the flat and stepped in, jumping with a muffled curse when Mrs. Hudson appeared at the bottom of the stairs with her arms tightly crossed and a look of disapproval etched onto her face. John smiled at her but then sighed when she didn’t return it and shut the door behind him.

“Listen, Mrs. H, I really don’t think—” John started, cutting himself off when she grabbed his arm and shoved him with a strong hand towards the stairs.

“I don’t know what you said to him, but you’re going right on up there and you’re going to apologise until your voice runs out,” She ordered him sternly, poking him in the lower back to urge him onwards faster. “You’ve hurt that poor boy, and you’re going to make it right, and you’re going to do it now. Go on. And if you hurt him further, you’ll have me to deal with and I won’t be as forgiving.”

John blinked and Mrs. Hudson narrowed her eyes, gestured angrily for him to go up, and then slammed her door before John could respond. John stared at the closed door and then looked up with dread as he gradually and cautiously took the remaining steps and opened the door.

Sherlock was in the living room sitting in his chair with his fingers under his chin, still wearing his pyjamas and dressing gown, but as soon as John stepped in and hung up his coat, Sherlock jumped to his feet, disappeared into the kitchen and came back holding another mug of tea. He offered it to John without a change in his expressionless face and then stepped back and regarded John with a twitch in his eyebrows, not saying a word and waiting until John looked into the mug briefly before he moved back to his chair and sat down.

John toed awkwardly out of his shoes and walked around to linger a few feet away from his own chair, “Sherlock—”

“You lied.” Sherlock uttered.

“What?”

Sherlock turned his gaze on him, “You won’t leave,” he said as he stared at John. “You won’t.”

John frowned, hearing it more like a question than the statement it was disguised as and clenched his jaw, “Yeah. Yeah, I…I…Sherlock, I’m sorry…” he trailed off when Sherlock dropped his eyes to the floor and stood again in a smooth and quick action. 

“Do you really want to put a stop to the arrangement?” Sherlock asked him, sounding and looking indifferent but vibrating with energy and surrounded by some thick aura that made the hair on the back of John’s neck stand on end. “I’d rather you didn’t. I like our arrangement. Quite a lot, actually. It’s horribly inconvenient when I think about it…and I’ve thought about it a great deal, all day in fact…but I still can’t help but like it or like you. I want it to continue. I need it to. I want your hands, and your arms, and your hair, and your body, and your scent… ”

“The arrangement is…stupid,” John muttered weakly, taking a gulp of tea for courage and then staring down at it. “You…this is…exactly how I like my tea. It’s perfect. I…didn’t think you knew how I liked my tea.”

“Of course I know,” Sherlock sniffed, eyeing John with a flickering of smugness as he then strode over towards him, his dressing gown hanging off one shoulder.

John looked at him, suddenly suspicious, “…Why have you made me tea? And when did you make it? You didn’t know when I’d be home…there was no way you’d know.”

“Obvious,” Sherlock dismissed and paused before John with a slight glance at the mug, as if admiring his handiwork happily, his hands behind his back. 

“Not to me?”

“Evidently.”

John glared at him and then adjusted his posture, lifting the tea pointedly, “Why did you make me tea, Sherlock?”

“Why do I normally make you tea?” Sherlock countered, tilting his head.

“You normally don’t.”

“But I have done. In the past.”

“Yes—”

Sherlock inclined his head and arched his eyebrows, “And what was the reason?”

“I don’t know! To distract me? To…surprise me? To apologise to me? To win an argument? To annoy me by making me question everything and become frustrated—?”

Sherlock’s mouth twitched into a shadow of a smile and he took a deliberate step closer, “Yes...”

“Yes to which?” John retorted in irritation, before he noticed how Sherlock’s pupils dilated, and licked his lips in reaction, expectation and willingness stirring through his body. “Sherlock…?”

Sherlock growled and looked skyward in aggravation, “Make up your mind. Do you want me to make you tea and show my gratitude or not? I made it because I want you to stop ignoring me. I made it to calm you down. To show you that I value you, even if you’ve spent several days pretending I don’t exist and rebuffing each and every time I tried to engage you in conversation. Conversation, John. I detest conversation. More so when it’s to do with your…feelings. I was forced to have small talk with Mrs. Hudson, John! Honestly, how much punishment must you put me through?”

“You were hassling me! You knew I didn’t want to talk about it, but you kept on and on! What did you expect me to do?—And don’t tell me you didn’t know that I was uncomfortable about it, because I know you knew. You’re not particularly dense, Sherlock. You knew exactly what was going on.”

“I liked the feel of you against my wet skin,” Sherlock murmured once John had brought up the subject, ignoring John’s immediate look of anger, however watching John’s brow wrinkle with a perceptive expression. “I’d like for you to touch me in the shower again. I know you’re willing, even if you say you’re not—By the way, about your reaction, was it me? Or was it the act that made you respond in such a way? Perhaps it was merely the heat of the shower or the incitements of the water? I suppose it could have been because of habit? You do a lot of your masturbation in the shower, after all… possibly a little too much of it in the shower. Just imagine what a black light would uncover, the tainted space will probably be quite immense—”

John’s glare intensified, “I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It’s been three days,” Sherlock breathed with a suddenly resentful sort of look. “Why don’t you want to talk about it? You’ve had your crisis already—”

John scoffed and took another automatic sip of tea before he put it down, “I haven’t actually. I’ve just been overwhelmed by it all and only started having some sort of “crisis” three days ago. I’m still having it, in fact. It’s like an endless loop with you constantly badgering me—This…arrangement was all your idea. I only agreed to it to…to shut you up!”

“Shut me up again, then,” Sherlock told him, his eyes flashing with some unidentified emotion as he lifted his head and moved closer still, his feet bumping John’s, toes still bare. “I want your hands on me. I want you to grip and stroke and tease me—”

“Stop it.”

“—And I want to…add more to the arrangement,” Sherlock continued, looking unashamedly at John’s mouth. “I want you to kiss me while you touch me.”

John coughed on a sharp inhale, “…What?”

“Or I could kiss you? I want to kiss you. Let me?” Sherlock asked in a demanding tone and leaned towards John smelling of spicy arousal, his hands moving to touch John’s arms with the meekest and gentlest caress that John could remember feeling, even through the fabric of his work clothes.

John watched Sherlock’s fingers, noticed them trembling, and shook his head with a hard swallow, “No. No kissing.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too…intimate…”

Sherlock froze in bewilderment and dropped his hands to his sides again, “Too…intimate?”

John scowled, “Yes.”

“A kiss?”

“Yes!”

“But touching my penis and making me ejaculate isn’t?” Sherlock asked, for a moment looking curiously interested and perplexed all at once. 

John sighed deep and loud, and pushed Sherlock back a step, “Listen, I’m sorry if I…hurt and upset you before—”

“Upset me?” Sherlock echoed.

“—Yes. Mrs. Hudson even had a go at me. I get it. I was unfair to you this morning…and possibly the last several days too, but you’ve got to understand that what happened…it’s not something I want to talk about. Not really. Not…not yet. Possibly not ever—God, I don’t know! This entire thing was about you, about giving you release and helping you out, it had nothing to do with me. You were just using my hands and I was…letting you, if only to keep you pliant and quiet and…and…” John gestured ineptly with his hands and arms and then looked into Sherlock’s amused face with a flush of undignified humiliation. “I think it’s best if we just end it all. It’s too insane for words, this thing. I shouldn’t be getting my flatmate off, and definitely not in the shower…”

“I was more infuriated than upset,” Sherlock aimlessly recalled and touched John’s arms again, tugging John half a step nearer and then hooking the waistband of his pyjama bottoms under his semi-erect penis, displaying himself to John impatiently. “Touch me?”

“Weren’t you listening to what I just said, Sherlock?” John asked with an acquiescent expression as he glanced down for a considering moment, curling his hand around Sherlock slowly, almost unconsciously, amazed at the rapid response to his touch as Sherlock wavered forward and pushed his hot skin into John’s palm with a greedy hiss. “Why do you want to kiss me? First it’s the prostate thing, now it’s a kiss? Your mind works in such a peculiar way…”

“Hm—though I still don’t understand how asking for a kiss is deemed too intimate when you’re more than willing to touch my genitals?” Sherlock muttered, moving close enough to breathe over John’s face lightly with each and every exhaled, discreet moan. “Nothing is too intimate if you don’t want it to be. I’ve seen people kiss without feelings, without intimacy…”

John inwardly savoured the smell of Sherlock and delved his hand suddenly between Sherlock’s legs with a very slight but deliberate grin as Sherlock gripped at him in pleasured surprise. John feared for his rationality and wondered how he’d gotten from arguing and ending the agreement between them, to stroking and rolling the skin of Sherlock’s scrotum, and feeling the thickening of Sherlock’s shaft up his wrist.

“No kissing,” John mumbled, looking down to see the head of Sherlock’s penis smearing along the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

“Just one?” Sherlock asked excitedly as he pushed both sets of fingers up into John’s hair and trapped John’s hand between them when he pushed bodily up against him. “You said no to stimulating my prostate...yet you did it anyway—I’d really appreciate if you did that again sometime, by the by. Ah, see, there’s that word again, John. Appreciate.”

“Yes, well done.” John rolled his eyes, “Anyway, that was…different. The…prostate thing. That was more to teach you a lesson, almost. You thought you could handle it, thought it was nothing, so I showed you that you were wrong. Which you were, by the by. Wrong. So, very wrong.”

Sherlock scowled with a hitch of breath, parting his legs when John curled his fingers to cup him. “Just kiss me. You never know, I might not like it. I’m not exactly a fan of kissing. Never quite saw the attraction to swapping spit and so never partook in the act much. It can be so inelegant and chaotic and tedious—Plus, I might consider your technique to be lacking and not up to my standards, which will put a stop to the proceedings immediately.”

“Not up to your standards? How can you have standards if you’ve hardly kissed anyone?” John glared, angling Sherlock’s jaw with his free hand thoughtlessly. With a sharp stab of trepidation that he was quick to ignore, John pushed his mouth into Sherlock’s. 

The kiss was sudden but soft, and Sherlock tensed, then moved one arm to curl around John’s shoulders with a groan, kissing back with an overly warm and wet mouth until John turned his head away, separating their lips. He watched as Sherlock blinked and leaned back to stare at him in deliberation, his penis suddenly hard and leaking against John’s hand when John dragged his fingers up to caress the glans routinely. The moment Sherlock moved back in for another kiss though, John removed his hand completely and stepped back, backing up and shaking his head.

“You said one,” John whispered croakily, clearing his throat.

Sherlock nodded, “Yes...”

John stuttered and blushed hotly as Sherlock pressed back up against him and reattached their mouths, kissing John innocently and slowly, his arms encircling John’s shoulders again. He kissed John repeatedly, small and sweet pecks that left John’s entire mouth tingling, each press of lips just as heated but chaste as the one before it, as if Sherlock was relishing the sensations and teasing himself with the lightest brush of contact he could manage. 

“You’re making me so hard,” Sherlock murmured into his mouth with a deep and rough groan and a glazed look about him. “I might come without you touching me.”

John recoiled and jerked his head backwards with a sudden wave of dizzying embarrassment, “Shit…Sherlock, don’t say that...what’s with you and the dirty talk…?”

“Although, technically, you are touching me…” Sherlock said suggestively, making John aware of his own growing erection by nudging into it with a lustful sigh and another kiss, before wriggling an arm down between them to tentatively touch John’s belt buckle, tapping his fingertips along it. “May I—?”

John shoved Sherlock away in reaction and turned, about to retreat once again to his room, like he had many times over in the last three days, but paused, “This is so wrong…”

“What’s wrong with getting an erection over me?” Sherlock asked him with a fuzzy stare. “I get one over you. Truth be told, I’ve always been somewhat aroused by you—”

John flushed brightly, “Shut up. It’s…not you. It wasn’t because of you before, and it isn’t because of you now. It’s…it’s just a…random, errant erection…I had it before I got here. There’s a new female doctor at work…” he lied poorly, not looking at Sherlock but making a show of wiping his mouth. “No more kissing. You asked for one, and I gave you one. That’s enough. No kissing and…no more…touching. I want to end the stupid bloody contract already! I’ve had enough of it, and I’ve had enough of you!”

Sherlock’s stare sharpened into a glare, “All right.”

“…Good.”

“Good.”

John nodded curtly, “Fine.”

“Fine,” Sherlock muttered, lowering his eyes to the floor and standing awkwardly before John with his pyjama bottoms still tucked under his red and wet erection. His mouth contorted and then pursed tightly as he stared blankly at his own feet, and John felt a twist of emotion and huffed, swallowing down the lump of panic.

“…Okay, so maybe it is because of you…a little bit…a very tiny, little bit…but…but I…I don’t…I’m not gay,” John stammered self-consciously, aware that his hand was still tacky with Sherlock’s arousal. “I…I’m not. Really. I don’t know why I’m reacting but…but I am. You know that. Obviously. But I’m not gay. I’m not interested…I just…it’s like getting an erection from the vibration of a bus engine or…or from a shoulder massage…it doesn’t mean anything.”

Sherlock gave him an unconvinced glance, “Fine.”

“Right. Fine. Yeah…so…come…come on then,” John mumbled and grabbed for Sherlock’s wrist before he thought better of it, pulling Sherlock through into Sherlock’s bedroom and pushing him down on the bed a little too roughly. “I’ll…do…one last thing. To help you with your…problem. Where’s your lube?”

“I’d rather not end our agreement,” Sherlock replied unreceptively from his sprawled out position across the mattress. “I like it. I need it—And so do you.”

John rummaged through the bedside drawers unsteadily and shook his head, “Nope.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No—”

Sherlock slammed his hand into the drawer John opened, banging it shut, and stared into John’s face, “You’re just as addicted as I am, John. Only difference between us is that I’m not alarmed by it. I’m not a coward.” He intoned hoarsely. “I accept it—It may be a sort of hindrance at times, thinking about your hands on me, or the smell of your hair, or the way your arm muscles bunch and flex when you’ve rolled up your sleeves… but I deal with it. I like it. I like you. I need you.”

John narrowed his eyes with a bloom of emotion, his mind amass of noise as he absorbed Sherlock’s words one by one, “…I’m a coward, am I?”

“Yes.” Sherlock replied with a tilt of his chin.

“Really?”

Sherlock shot John one of his wide and demeaning smiles, “Yep.”

The smile triggered something inside John that unexpectedly made him swoop down and kiss Sherlock on the mouth hard. The contact was awkward and unrelenting and angry, and made their teeth clink together when John turned his head aside. Sherlock was still for a second and then returned the kiss tentatively, calming John’s rough treatment of him with slow and forgiving movements and a shaky, gentle exhale of pleasure that enveloped John’s face in coiling heat. John fisted his hands and let up on the pressure, before stopping altogether and holding himself steady for Sherlock to trail moist, sweet kisses across his bottom lip and down his chin.

John stood up straight, denying Sherlock more and covered his mouth briefly, “Shit. Sorry. God—Sherlock, do you know how you sound when you say all that stuff? Do you honestly not see anything wrong with this? We’re friends, flatmates, even work partners; we’re not meant to be doing any of this! This is…this…”

“It’s hardly any different from before,” Sherlock told him patiently, looking bothered, mouth red and kiss swollen. “I needed you before all this, I just didn’t know how much, or how addictive you are—it’s quite maddening but I don’t think I want it to end. It can, if you…really want it to. I said you could end it, and so you can, but I really would rather you didn’t, and instead kept on bringing me to completion with your extremely skilful hands. I’m not averse to doing the same for you either, if you ever wanted me to—”

“God…stop…” John complained, turning his back on Sherlock who was still prone on the bed and still hard, gradually soaking the material of his pyjamas with pre-ejaculate. “So...okay, so, so you need me at crime scenes and all that, but you also need me to get off, yeah? All right. What if…what if I let you write up another stupid, sodding contract then? So I know exactly what it is you…need…”

“I’ve told you—”

“Yeah, well, tell me again!”

“You said you didn’t want it written down, in case someone saw,” Sherlock reminded him complacently.

John scowled at him, “I know that. That was then, this is…now—But, I can’t honestly promise I won’t end this thing properly at a later date. I’m not gay. I’m not! I’m not interested in that stuff. Not even with you. Not even after…all of…this. I will want to date again at some point, date women, and I’ll be terminating it all and that will be the end of it. Are we clear?”

Sherlock shrugged and crossed his arms, “If you say so, John.”

“I do, say so. I say so very vehemently, Sherlock. I’m just helping you out. I have no interest in taking it any further than a friend helping out a…a friend.”

Sherlock arched his eyebrow slowly and rolled his eyes when John opened his mouth to snap, “All right. I was fine with that at the beginning anyway. Nothing has changed.”

John snorted, “No. Nothing but your insistence that I massage your bloody prostate, wank you off in the shower and kiss you. No. Everything is exactly the same as before.”

Sherlock laughed and loosened his folded arms, “So…the arrangement is still on?”

“Yes. Yeah,” John sighed with a vague shrug and a blush.

Sherlock sat up sinuously, squirmed out of his dressing gown, pulled off his pyjama top, and grabbed John’s hands, “Touch me,” he breathed, pressing John’s palms onto the skin of his stomach and torso, and then leaning up to put his face inches from John’s meaningfully with determination.

The pale skin under John’s fingers quivered and flushed with deep and sudden arousal, and John took an uneven inhale, “You…really like my touch, don’t you?” 

“Yes,” Sherlock said quietly, mouth nudging John’s cheek as he pushed further into John’s hands with a quaking of his body and an instinctive thrust of his hips. “I love you.”

John stilled and turned his head quickly, knocking noses with Sherlock with a huff and staring into Sherlock’s eyes, unsure of what he heard with Sherlock squirming up from the bed and touching the side of his throat, dragging long, pale fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. Sherlock peered at him from lidded eyes and then tipped his chin up in a blatant and willing invitation for a kiss, and John lowered his gaze to Sherlock’s offered lips uneasily, trying to ignore the spark up his spine that made him suddenly kneel on the bed to be closer.

“Lube?” John asked.

Sherlock turned in his grasp lazily and stretched over the bed to the opposite bedside drawer, rummaging in it with a sigh, “Condom?”

John looked away and coughed to clear his throat, “Up to you. It’s your bed. Your sheets.”

“Yes, but you do the washing,” Sherlock smirked as he lobbed the bottle of lubrication at John’s hip and pushed off his pyjama bottoms to sit naked in the middle of his bed, opening the condom wrapper idly.

“Did you buy your own?” 

Sherlock glanced up at him and hitched one shoulder, “Sort of. I had Mrs. Hudson buy me a few boxes.”

John stared and huffed loudly with an uncontrollable giggle, “Boxes? You…you had Mrs. Hudson buy you boxes of condoms? Boxes? How many boxes?”

“Only six.”

“Only six? Oh God…that poor woman—why would you do that to her? God. You’re something else…” 

“Stop giggling,” Sherlock protested as he rolled the condom on himself and then rearranged the pillows. “And roll up your sleeves.”

John shuffled onto the bed after he had controlled himself a little better and gave Sherlock a glance, still embarrassed and anxious at seeing Sherlock fully naked and aroused, “I can’t believe you…lie on your back.”

“I have several boxes of latex gloves too if you want to wear them?” Sherlock offered with a sneaky sort of look in John’s direction as he adjusted himself against the pillows and bed sheets, bending his legs up and parting them only when John leaned over him. 

“I’ll do this quick,” John mumbled as he rolled up his sleeves and slicked his hands, warming the lubrication with quick and deft movements that Sherlock regarded silently, his toes curling against the sheets in anticipation and his hands braced on his knees. John eyed him and leaned further over him with a faint and quick smile, pressing two fingers against Sherlock’s perineum slowly.

Sherlock gasped silently and relaxed his jaw in pleasure, flicking his eyes down to follow the line of John’s arm as John touched and massaged skilfully, “It…p-probably won’t take long anyway…the kissing was a little too good…”

“Yeah?” John whispered in diffidence. “That’s, uh, that’s… good.”

Sherlock grabbed for his arms when his thighs began to tremble one minute later and whined lowly, thrusting up in a short burst with a look of wanton desire, which made John look away in awkwardness. John grabbed his hip once Sherlock thrust again, holding him down, and angled his wrist, rubbing his fingers in a teasing circle of slick friction. Sherlock arched his head back and groaned openly and deeply, writhing in building pleasure while John deftly stroked further down, caressing the crease of his buttocks with one mischievous finger.

“O-oh! Oh…yes…you can…do that…if you want,” Sherlock panted, his chest heaving as his eyes rolled back and he reached up to stroke hot, vibrating fingers up John’s moving arm, neglecting his angry looking cock to fondle at every inch of John’s skin that he could, clawing through the hair on his arms.

Snapping out of his captivated stupor, John glanced up at Sherlock’s sweaty face, “What?”

Sherlock shuddered and gestured fleetingly and vaguely, “Y-you…you can…inside…a little…” he slurred, fighting against John’s hold playfully with a look of pure delight as he tensed and rutted shallowly, unable to stop a sudden torrent of moans when John increased the pressure and made the familiar and efficient short circular motions to entice Sherlock closer and closer to climax. 

John felt his mouth quirk and hummed lowly, “Inside?” he repeated right before he gathered what Sherlock had meant and pushed the cloudy haze inside his mind aside again and blinked, blushing in realisation. “Oh…”

Sherlock whimpered with a hitched breath and clenched his jaw, trying to fight off the inevitable, “John! John…please…yes…I…can’t…I want…”

Still rubbing at Sherlock’s prostate through his perineum, John darted his gaze down between Sherlock’s shaking legs and stared, hissing gently when Sherlock scratched at his arms wildly as he approached his peak. As Sherlock began to become more and more vocal with his nearing pleasure, John paused all movement and waited until Sherlock lifted his head in confusion before he abruptly slipped a finger between his buttocks to briefly circle the tight clench of skin and then push very slightly against it with a moist squelch of lubrication.

Sherlock’s eyes widened and he stiffened, rasped noisily, and then howled in sudden orgasm, bucking so strongly and erratically off the bed that John fumbled and gripped his waist to keep him from injuring himself. Sherlock bent almost completely up off the mattress, twisting rigidly, and John gazed at the red blush on Sherlock’s chest, neck and face, following the lined patterns of tendons as they pushed swiftly from under his skin. The next moan from Sherlock as he coated the condom in several, thick, rough pulses, shook the air in the bedroom and vibrated in a lurid reverberation up and down John’s body before Sherlock gargled and suddenly collapsed unconscious. 

“…Sherlock?” John panted, bending over him and checking his pulse and temperature quickly, rambling to himself to ignore the throbbing in his groin “Shit…all right, this happened last time too…you’re probably dehydrated and you’re really warm…”

John moved Sherlock into a more comfortable position on the bed and rushed off to dampen a towel in cool water as well as filling a glass, and then returned. Patting Sherlock down, John checked on Sherlock’s heart rate and smiled tightly when Sherlock’s eyelids fluttered and he jerked into consciousness again, mumbling incoherently and reaching for John’s arms, shoulders and face.

“Low blood pressure,” John mumbled in reply to Sherlock’s eye movement before they rolled upward lazily, pulling Sherlock up against his chest. “Drink some water—can you even hold the glass?” 

John huffed when Sherlock lolled on his shoulder and tugged Sherlock up further, taking a small mouthful of water himself, and then angled Sherlock’s head, sealing their lips together and pushing the water slowly into Sherlock’s mouth through the light kiss.

Sherlock coughed and then swallowed, touching John’s cheek with a lazy grin once John pulled back, “That’s new…” he grunted.

“Shut up,” John grinned with embarrassment, hefting the glass and taking another sip, passing the water over to Sherlock through another kiss. “You need some water—might need to look more into this fainting malarkey. Did you eat or drink anything at all today?”

“No.”

“Ah…” John sighed, cradling Sherlock for longer than he knew he needed to. “You’re in idiot.”

“Mm. One who needs more water.”

“Arse.”


	8. Gents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "FINALLY!" I hear you all cry -- Yes. I am so, so, so sorry for the wait. But writer's block sucks and can be hard to get over.  
> Please forgive me. I love you all <3
> 
> I wrote a lot for this, and it's mostly them being awkward buggers...God I hope it's good.

Cradling his steaming mug of coffee, John sighed and relaxed with a faint slump in a chair, content in the quaint café and it’s warm atmosphere. He had needed the peace and quiet of the welcoming place, and he thanked his lucky stars that he’d found it at random during one of his long walks away from the flat, and more specifically away from Sherlock. Shaking the sudden onslaught of past memories about Sherlock and his lust filled eyes and gasping mouth aside, John peered intently into his mug and tried to blank his mind as he blew into it with another sigh, drinking the dark liquid after a moment to effectively warm himself from the inside. It was a cold day, colder than it should be going by the weather forecast on the news that morning, and so John took great pleasure in partaking in another sip, even as it burned his top lip slightly and scorched a path down his throat. 

A vivid image of Sherlock smirking knowingly at him from his chair that evening bullied its way up behind his eyes, and grinding his teeth, John rolled his eyes and pushed the recent memory away roughly. Things had gone back to how things had used to be, or to how things went in-between Sherlock’s sporadic, sudden and unpredictable interest in John’s hands on parts of his body that John assumed had not been touched by another person for some time. Though he tried not to admit it, the thought that John was one of the only people to have had permission to touch Sherlock intimately was something that always never failed to make John’s neck and face hot with a dizzying delight, which swirled in his gut and zipped up his spine whenever he lingered and considered the idea for too long. 

It had been a month and a few days since their last sexual encounter, and Sherlock had not only shifted back into his impassive and stoic self almost instantly the following few days after, but he had acted as if what they had talked and argued about had never happened, too intent on trying to find something to occupy his mind with. John wasn’t entirely surprised by the action and oddly preferred that Sherlock not bring it up, however their little arrangement seemed to be evolving as time went on, and John could no longer overlook the fact that he was enjoying the things he was doing for, and to, Sherlock more and more, much more than he liked to acknowledge to himself, and he felt sick with strange and unfamiliar thoughts and emotions whenever he tried to deal with it maturely. John was confused with Sherlock, and with himself, and couldn’t seem to figure out what to do about any of it. He didn’t want to lose his friendship with Sherlock, yet he didn’t want what they had started to actually end either, and he knew that one way or another, something would need to be finished and things would eventually be damaged as a result.

A flare of aroused heat at the involuntary thought of Sherlock writhing beneath him and gasping with pleasure filled John’s thoughts so suddenly and so hugely that John bared his teeth with a hiss at the intensity of it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he caught one member of staff frowning at him with concern. He tried to pretend his expression was down to the boiling temperature of the coffee, and cleared his throat, looking away awkwardly.

The café wasn’t just modest and small, but it wasn’t excessively crowded, and instead only currently held the two members of staff behind the counter, and three people at the neatly lined tables, including John himself. It felt secluded from the bustle just outside its windows, and John glanced around, peeking out before he turned his gaze back inside, catching the eye of a woman a few tables ahead of him. She was eyeing him intently with a blush and an overly sweet smile, and John returned it with a small grin of his own, charmed at being looked at with such interest. He straightened his shoulders when she sashayed over to sit with him. 

She was young, possibly in her early thirties, but held the same sort of wide-eyed look of interest that reminded John of a child seeing a toyshop for the first time, and it wasn’t that John didn’t think she was attractive, far from it, John found her incredible attractive, but he couldn’t stop the trickle of suspicion and unease at how she regarded him. For a second, he tensed and glanced around, taking a quick scan around the café, but then pushed his suspicion aside and inclined across the table to her with an open, honest and polite smile. 

“Hello,” he greeted with happily arched eyebrows. 

“Hey,” she replied with a bright smile, tucking some hair behind her ear. “Sorry, I know this is weird and extremely random but…aren’t you John Watson? I, um, I read your blog, about you and your flatmate? – Please say I’ve got the right person?”

John nodded and laughed gently, “Yeah. Yes, you certainly have. Hello,” he said, holding out a hand for her to shake, enjoying the soft skin of her fingers and the waft of her perfume as she excitedly leaned across the table to him. “Nice to meet a—well, I don’t really want to say fan but…”

“Oh no, I’m definitely a fan,” she giggled and kept hold of his hand as she gazed at him and introduced herself. “Justine Stevens – It’s so bizarre to finally meet you. I knew you lived in London, but I never thought I’d actually get the chance to meet you. I’ve lived here most of my life but have never even come close to running into a celebrity before.”

“London is full with people,” John agreed and shifted in his seat, wondering if it was really good idea to be meeting a fan, and trying to work out what the glimmer in her eyes meant. “But I’m hardly a celebrity, Justine. If anything, Sherlock’s the celebrity, I’m just his personal blogger…and colleague.”

“No, you’re more than that. You both make each other whole. Sort of like yin and yang, you know? You can’t have one without the other,” Justine said with a happy exhalation, and instead of letting go of his hand, she stroked his knuckles a little coyly, “You both live such exciting and adventurous lives – What are you doing here on your own? Or are you waiting for Mr Holmes? Gosh, I hope so!”

John frowned with an amused huff, “What do you mean? – We’re not joined at the hip,” he laughed. “Sherlock isn’t everywhere I am—”

Justine seemed about to reply but instead her eyes flicked up and over at something behind his shoulder with an passionate twinkle, and John felt his stomach twist in annoyance, knowing what, or rather who, she was looking at without even having to turn around. Sherlock’s scent reached him before the man himself did, and John tried not to clench the hand that Justine still had possession of into an angry, exasperated fist. When Sherlock stepped into John’s peripheral vision, he dropped one large hot hand on John’s shoulder, and then bent down slightly to try and catch his eye, his cheeks flushed but his mouth tightly pressed, as stern and serious as the look in his gaze. It was a look that John had seen countless times before, a look that meant a mixture of danger, excitement, severity, and eagerness. Was there a new case?

“What?” John asked, suddenly on high alert, though still suspicious enough not to move from his current position. “What is it? And can’t it wait?”

“No,” Sherlock replied curtly, paying absolutely no attention to Justine, who was looking between them with rapt focus, her eyes sparkling. “Come with me for a moment, won’t you?”

“Oh! Has there been a murder?” She gushed, and the way she had enthusiastically said it even made Sherlock frown in disapproval, though his eyes remained on John’s. “Or is it something else? – I did read in the papers that a known sex offender has just suddenly, stupidly, been acquitted, but there was so much against him that I personally think—”

“John,” Sherlock barked, cutting her off midsentence and gripping John’s shoulder with steely fingers. “I must talk with you. Now.”

John sighed and turned to look Sherlock fully in the face, eyeing the flush on his cheeks once more with narrowed eyes, deliberating if it was to do with the brisk wind outside or something else entirely, “Is it really that urgent—?”

“Yes!” Sherlock said through his teeth and straightened up, motioning for John to follow him as he swept away from their table and further into the café with a swish of his coat. He paused with a bounce of his curls and a taut look over his shoulder, and motioned for John a second time in an irritated and hurried manner. 

John tried to read the line of his shoulders and the stance of his feet in a vain attempt to understand if Sherlock just wanted to ruin his day on purpose; actually had something to say or show him; or if he finally wanted that “something” John had been thinking about in the recent days with growing frustration. Truthfully, John wanted for it to be two things simultaneously, which was ridiculous. He wanted Sherlock to want him for a case, and to want him. Full stop.

Sherlock’s eyes hadn’t left John’s face, and though that wasn’t exactly unusual, there was something in his gaze that quickened the beating of John’s heart before he could properly wonder about it. 

“Excuse me for a moment, Justine,” John mumbled with a forced smile in her direction, wriggling his hand free of her grasp and getting to his feet, actually happy to be free of her. “I’ll just see what he wants and then come back. He didn’t leave so it might not be too vital – Could be something mundane.”

“Take all the time you need,” she grinned, already typing on her phone excitedly and waving him away. “If you don’t come back, I won’t be offended. Just make sure to include me in your next blog post! – Heh, I’m joking.”

John frowned and muttered, “Um, right. Okay…” before he got up with a soft grunt and walked over to Sherlock, a tingling settling in near his pelvis. “So, what is it?”

“Don’t give me that tone,” Sherlock retorted, instantly grabbing John’s wrist and suddenly dragging him in through the men’s toilets at breakneck speed, “it’s not as if you were enjoying her presence – She’s a fanatic, obviously. Did you see her nails? Or more specially, her nail beds?”

“Her nail beds? What? Sherlock—” John looked around the toilets, squinting at the white and grey tiles with a fizz of abrupt heat, and dug his heels in, frantically looking around with a hiss of awkwardness. “No! Sherlock, no! Do you hear me? We are not doing this, not now, not here! – What is wrong with you? It’s been little over a month since…s-since…last time and you choose now of all times to come waltzing in, expecting me to just drop everything, and everyone, to “service” you like I have nothing better to do?”

“Ah, perfect,” Sherlock murmured with a smirk at the sight of the unoccupied disabled toilet stall, hauling John inside and locking the door behind them with a slight tremble of his fingers that made John’s face burn with heat. “And it’s clean too—well, relatively clean.”

“I said no!” John told him, stepping back when Sherlock turned around and began unbuttoning his coat, his pupils hugely dilated and the blush on his cheeks growing to outline his cheekbones. “Sherlock! – For goodness sake, Sherlock, why now?”

“I told you before,” Sherlock said patiently as he wandered into John’s personal space, the crotch of his trousers obscenely bulged, something that John had somehow missed during his examination of Sherlock mere moments ago. “I’m not a highly sexual person. So I won’t want it daily. I might not even want it weekly. I do not always get aroused nor feel the need to—”

John shoved Sherlock back by the chest and pointed at him, then signalled to the toilets, “You want to do it here?”

“Would you rather I drag you home to do it? No. Its too far, too cold, and I’m at my wits end as it is – It won’t take long,” he reasoned with a shrug, pulling off his scarf, which exposed how far his aroused flush had spread, trailing down the manly yet slender line of his neck in blotchy clouds of pink. “I need you, John. Right now. I can’t concentrate. It’s been at least 20 to 30 minutes – I have things I want to focus on, and I cannot do so because I keep fantasying about you.”

“Wait, hold on – 20 to 30 minutes since you’ve been…aroused?” John asked, lowering his voice when his voice echoed, and flexing his fingers in and out of a fist to work off his suppressed eagerness. “Look – Go deal with it, yourself! I’m not in the mood for you and your stupid penis. I don’t care how many times I’ve given in before; I won’t always do it at a drop of a bloody hat! – You snub me for weeks or months on end, and then suddenly remember I exist and “fantasise” about me out of the blue? Ridiculous. It’s not on!”

Sherlock threw up his arms in frustration, “How many more times must we go through this before you get it?” he snarled, overly aggravated by John’s words as he shifted his stance and took a long step closer, backing John up against the wall and a handrail, which dug painfully into John’s spine. “I am not – contrary to what you may think – sex mad! You might think about it on a daily basis, but I do not. That’s not to say that your… well, that all of you, still doesn’t distract me! However, I keep a level head and can normally ignore and sustain enough brain function by distracting myself with work—Of course, sometimes, this…fails, and so I come to you, like our agreement states. I wrote it down for a reason, John, and at your request this time too. The least you can do is read it.”

“I don’t care how many times we go through this, I still think it’s completely mad,” John said with a humourless laugh, looking everywhere but at Sherlock. “Mad and irrational and completely and utterly dangerous—!”

“And you love it,” Sherlock said in a loud burst, turning away to compose himself before he turned back around. “Fine. I’m going to repeat myself, yet again, in the hopes maybe this will shut you up: Since the very first time you “helped” me, I have been unable to stop thinking about it, a random intervals. I do ignore my urges, as I’ve had years of practice doing so, but sometimes my body betrays me. Sometimes even my mind betrays me – I think about you, constantly, but it’s not, technically, always sexual in nature. I also can and have masturbated without needing you, and very frequently. Too frequently. Yet, eventually, not even that can satisfy me properly and I’m left in the state I am in now – Nothing I do myself is good enough, and I can not be appropriately sated until it’s you that touches me and brings me to completion—I only come to you when I am in dire need. Dire, John. Remember that! And afterward, when you have satisfied my gnawing desire, I am finally myself again and I can think and function properly once more. – There is no rhyme or reason or schedule for it, because if there was, I would know by now!”

John frowned, “…You masturbate frequently?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Frequently.”

“Yes, but when?” John asked with a roll of his eyes, trying to ignore the shaking in his legs. 

Sherlock pulled at his hair, “What are you asking? – Frequently tells you exactly “when” I do it!”

John shook his head and gestured vaguely with his arm and hand, “But you just said that you aren’t a sexual person a moment ago, and yet you masturbate frequently?—”

“More frequently than I used to then. Plus, you are not with me every moment of the day, John, so you can’t possibly know if and when I choose to masturbate,” Sherlock muttered and then forced a condescending smile, repeating the words he’d said to Justine back at him. “We’re not joined at the hip.” 

“How did you find me anyway?” John asked curtly, glaring at Sherlock’s tone and deciding to change the subject before his heart exploded. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but his heart was hammering too hard and too fast to be healthy.

Sherlock’s mouth and eye twitched but he didn’t answer and instead moved in toward John, “I need your hand on me – I always need that now, and I don’t think it will change anytime soon. My own hands are just…insufficient. – Perhaps I should have it tattooed across my forehead? Would you remember it better with an autocue?”

John exhaled and opened his mouth to retort, but Sherlock suddenly thrust a crumpled piece of paper into his sternum, knocking the wind from him. It was the contract, the deal they had made between them, and John cringed back into the wall at the sight of it. After the last incident, John remembered that he had asked for Sherlock to write it up again, something that Sherlock had obviously quickly delivered. They had spent the next morning going over it and though it was still stupid and awkward and downright wrong, John had sighed, rubbed his face, ignored the series of smug expressions Sherlock kept shooting his way, and had just signed it. 

“What…do you just carry this around with you at all times or something?” John exclaimed straightening it out with an absentminded tug and glaring when Sherlock flicked it pointedly, tapping the place where John’s signature sat to crumple it back up again. “Yes. I can see. I’m not blind.”

Sherlock shifted his eyebrows and began unbuckling his belt, “Good. So…?”

“So…I think this is unhealthy. Stupid. Dangerous. Pathetic, on both our parts. And something we should really stop doing – I mean, Christ, we shouldn’t have ever started it to begin with. It’s a load of bullshit. It was always a load of bullshit, and never bloody stopped being so!— God, I should never have given in to you in the first place… To think that I honestly thought you couldn’t get off on your bleedin’ own! What on earth was I thinking?” John said, unable to pull his eyes away from Sherlock’s nimble fingers as they dropped to pop open the button to his trousers, knowing that he was probably repeating himself like some broken record, like always. “I…I think you’re just lazy, and after finding out that you can talk me into doing it for you, you now continually do so – It’s like when I have to fetch your stupid phone when it’s in the pocket of your stupid coat or your jacket! Or when you call me home from work just to pass you a soddin’ pen!”

John could really tell it wasn’t the first time he was saying those things by the look on Sherlock’s face, and felt resentment prickle up the back of his neck, resentment at himself rather than at Sherlock. Also, he could tell by the way his heart was still pounding and his fingers were twitching, that he was going to give in again after his silly speech anyway. Not only had he made a silly, illogical deal with Sherlock, which for some odd reason meant something to them both, but he also actually found that whenever nothing happened for long periods of time, he missed it. He had missed it before, when Sherlock had stopped impishly staring at him, and he had missed it again more recently. For a month he had waited for Sherlock to turn up randomly in his room or to sneak in whilst he was showering. John wondered, briefly, if Sherlock was doing it on purpose just to mess with him, but Sherlock was Sherlock, he wasn’t like any other man, including himself.

With a huff and half a smile, Sherlock pulled down the zip of his trousers and wrenched the contract back from John’s fingers, almost tearing it in the process. He gazed at it with a fleeting, rapid flit of his eyes, and then stashed it into his pocket again, stalking ever closer into John’s personal space, something that didn’t take much effort given their situation. Sherlock motioned with his hand and his chin, indicating his crotch and then lifted his eyebrows for added measure, as if John would still not get what it was he wanted.

Through the slack fly of his trousers, John could make out the shape of his erection and the patch of dampness at the head. It brought back a bombardment of memories of their earlier and similar encounters, and John felt his whole face twitch. He also recalled, in that same moment, how Sherlock had requested for them to kiss, and had even added it to the new contract. John had not been able to stop thinking about the way Sherlock’s mouth had tasted for weeks after their last sexual happenstance, and he had apparently not been subtle in his new fixation as Sherlock had often smugly crossed his legs or pressed his fingers under his chin with an arrogant smile as if he knew exactly what John was thinking and fond the entire thing entertaining. 

“Sod off,” John intoned, crossing his arms, not knowing why he was trying to starve off the unavoidable. “Christ you’ve got some nerve – You really think you can just—?”

“Must I take out the contract, again?” Sherlock drawled and then, quite uncharacteristically, bounced on his feet and swayed forward. “Come on, just “toucha toucha toucha, touch me…””

John blinked widely at the singsong murmur and could barely stop the twitch of a grin as Sherlock moved further forward in good humour, “What in God’s name—?”

““I wanna be dirty.”” He mumbled lowly, frowning at the words and then looking aside in thought. “Well, not exactly. I’d prefer not to if I can help it – not on the outside of my trousers, at any rate.”

“Have you…” John squinted at Sherlock’s face and then smiled, pointing a finger at him. “You’ve been looking through my DVD collection again – If you’ve thrown some away, like you did the last time, I’m going to retaliate and do the same to your boring, dusty books you know!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, John,” Was Sherlock’s uninterested reply, his eyes half lidded and glinting. 

John arched an eyebrow, “No?” he asked, adjusting his stance. “So, you like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” do you?”

“Well, it is a cult classic,” Sherlock’s mouth twitched, “You left it in the player. Again. Is it really any fault of mine that you constantly leave discs in the disc tray whenever you fall asleep watching a film? – I must say, your tastes in films continue to astound me sometimes, John.”

“Did it escape your notice that I was with a…a woman during that night? – Anyway, enough, you can’t just change the subject and expect me to go merrily along with your plan just because you made a movie reference which amused me,” John told him, and slipped sideways, finally escaping the rail at his back with a sigh of relief.

“It’ll only take a few moments,” Sherlock said, slamming an arm out beside John’s head to stop his slanting retreat against the tiles, “Then you can go back to…whatever that was in there – Honestly, John. You can do better. Much, much better.”

“Apparently she’s a fan of my blog,” John explained in a mutter, allowing Sherlock to lean in so close that one smooth curl caught itself in the strands of John’s fringe. “At first I was flattered, but you know how weird some “fans” can get…”

“Mm,” Sherlock hummed, focused on the movement of John’s mouth as he talked. “I suppose kissing is out of the question? – I know you consider it a little to intimate. Stupid of you, but still, I’d quite like for you to make me—”

Slapping his hand over Sherlock’s lips messily, John scowled and regarded the look of pure arousal in his gaze before he spoke, “You really can’t wait until we’re back home?”

Sherlock shook his head slowly and dipped down to press his hips suddenly into John’s own to highlight his point, almost grinding the hard heat of his erection into the denim front pocket of John’s jeans. It wasn’t the first time that Sherlock had been so blatant, but it was the first time that John could recall where he found himself instantly and physically reacting to Sherlock. So quick that he felt momentarily dizzy from it. Wasn’t it? He couldn’t remember being aroused by anything Sherlock did right away before. He clenched his jaw as his stomach tensed and a flare of heat made his penis suddenly twitch and thicken in attention, and hoped that it wasn’t too obvious. 

“You want to do this here?” John asked again, whispering a little when he heard footsteps from outside the toilets, praying it also distracted Sherlock. 

Sherlock, however, seemed too engrossed on John, his attention drifting down John’s face, and reached up to pull John’s hand away from his mouth slowly with a tilt of his head and a narrowing of his eyes, “We’ve done it in public before,” he said lowly. “In fact, it was much more public than this – this is tremendously mild compared to crime scenes—”

“This is a men’s bathroom in a café where anyone can come in and…” John trailed off as his voice dropped a few octaves and cleared his throat. “This is…different.”

“Hardly,” Sherlock replied.

“No, it is. It’s very different – Sort of disgusting too.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, “I told you it was relatively clean in here – You brought me to orgasm with a dead body in the very next room, John. This should be child’s play,” he said, eyes flicking suddenly and knowingly downwards for a brief moment.

John expected Sherlock to taunt him and tease him, though he did nothing but bend down and kiss John lightly. However, the kiss could hardly be called a kiss at all, and John frowned, trying to focus on Sherlock’s face that was inches from his own. Sherlock hadn’t pursed his mouth or applied any sort of pressure, had only very, very gently brushed the skin of his lips over John’s, and then pulled back. John automatically wet his mouth with his tongue, gathering his breath to speak, and Sherlock swooped back in to push their lips together and stop him with a smirk.

After allowing the connection for a few seconds longer than he really needed to, John moved fully away and stood with one hand against his mouth as Sherlock sighed and turned to lean back against the wall, “In the Gents?” John asked once more, dropping his hand to his side when Sherlock answered the question by pushing his trousers and underwear down to mid thigh. 

““I've got an itch to scratch, I need assistance,”” Sherlock mumbled under his breath with another smirk, his brow lifting as he opened his coat further and crumpled up his un-tucked shirt with one hand to display the flushed, wet jut of his erection. He then snatched at John’s left arm with his other free hand, dragging him up close again expectantly. 

Scowling half-heartedly with a blush, John glanced away but reached down to curl his hand around the now familiar engorged thickness of Sherlock’s penis, “This is the first and the last time we do this in a bloody toilet stall,” he told him, and the first tight, eager upstroke of his hand pushed the foreskin back over the moist head with a loud and slick squish that made John’s own erection throb.

“Fine,” Sherlock hissed gently with eagerness, knocking his head back against the tiled wall behind him with a thump. “God, that feels so good…”

John couldn’t stop the sudden grin that stretched his face and peered back into Sherlock’s face, only to then give in to the blatant invitation for a kiss without proper thought, curling his free hand around Sherlock’s neck to grasp the short curls at his nape. Sherlock melted into him with a low moan and gripped at John’s coat, rutting into his hand with a clinking of his belt buckle and deepening the kiss until John stepped a little closer and angled Sherlock’s down a bit.

“Right…I’ll make it quick, shall I?” John said, letting go of his neck when Sherlock moaned again, louder than before, and pulled back to awkwardly and embarrassingly gather an untidy handful of toilet paper, his face hot. “Can’t believe this…you sure do pick your bloody moments, don’t you, Sherlock?”

Sherlock nudged and kissed John’s jaw sloppily, slumping down the wall to bend closer to John as he rhythmically bucked and thrust through the tight clinch of his fingers, “Hm,” he groaned, pressing his lips together when someone suddenly entered the toilets to use a urinal. Sherlock’s mouth quirked at John but he squirmed impatiently when John paused at the interruption, mouthing the words “Keep going” with a harsh sigh.

Glaring, John waited a few moments more and then continued his hand motions, covering the noise under the sound of the tap running and then the door shutting. Sherlock shifted and writhed in building pleasure, his shaft throbbing and thickening against his palm and fingers. Sherlock wasn’t far off orgasm already and upon noticing so, John swallowed and wadded up the toilet paper readily, swaying closer in entrancement as Sherlock bit down on his bottom lip and arched his neck.

Sherlock panted through his nose, keeping quiet, but only just, and smoothed his hand up John’s working arm, staring at John through his lashes. John grunted lowly in response, out of his mind with arousal unexpectedly, and the noise and sight of him prompted Sherlock to surge back in for a passionate and wild kiss that was immediately returned by John so eagerly that John lost his grip on Sherlock’s erection and pushed bodily up against Sherlock. 

“C-careful,” Sherlock said into his mouth when his erection dug into John’s stomach with a twitch of warning, smearing pre-ejaculate into the material of John’s coat quickly. John flushed and stepped back, grabbing his shaft again as it bobbed. Sherlock widened his stance with a quickening of his breath and a contraction of his stomach muscles as John sped up his caresses, squeezing and fondling Sherlock’s slick glans.

Fumbling with the toilet paper, John pushed it to the head of Sherlock’s cock just as Sherlock thrust with an uncontrollable shaking of his hips and cried out huskily in orgasm with a full body convulsion. He spilled copiously against John’s hand and into the paper in rough gushes, drenching it before he shivered and sighed, leaning heavily into the wall. John avoided his gaze uneasily, his own erection aching in the tight confines of his jeans, and stumbled out of the stall with a half-hearted glower and a shove when Sherlock made an eager and suggestive gesture toward his crotch meaningfully.

“The bloody Gent’s, Sherlock,” was all John could gruffly say in response, and tugged his coat down over the bulge as he ducked out of the toilets and the café altogether. 

Sherlock caught up with him a few streets away and exhaled a breath of white mist in the cold air, “That might have been the quickest you’ve made me ejaculate since this thing—Oh. Wait, no. Or was it the second quickest? Possibly… Maybe – I should time it next time.”

John spluttered and tripped on the pavement a little in shock, “What?” 

“So,” Sherlock said with a sigh and an overly bright smile, flitting his eyes at John’s groin, “Do you want me to return the favour? At home?”

“No.”

“Why not—?”

“No, Sherlock.”

“But I don’t mind – Actually, I’d be more than willing to—”

John’s stare was as icy as the sudden wind, a huge contradiction to the deep uncomfortable blush of his cheeks, “No!”


	9. In Circles

Sitting on the end of his bed, John took a deep, albeit shaky, breath and lifted his head with a straightening of his spine. He was determined to do what he had been planning to do over the last three days and confront Sherlock and talk about his feelings on the matter of the arrangement, as well as find out more about Sherlock’s own feelings too. He could still hear the murmured words that Sherlock had uttered, seemingly unconsciously, to John as he had pushed his mouth into John’s cheek some time ago. John was sure he’d said that he loved him, was almost positive that it was what Sherlock had said the more he had thought back on it, but what did that mean? 

Sherlock had reverted back to himself again, as predicted, after the grope in the men’s toilets in the café in which John had paid for a coffee he’d not finished and spoke to a woman he never went back to. At first, Sherlock had pestered and berated John about John’s own arousal, but had later dropped the subject when nothing was forthcoming and absorbed himself in some sort of experiment that had filled the flat in dense smoke. Sherlock had seemed refreshed and energetic and loose-limbed hours afterward their activity, and John tried to wonder if he had seen him as lively before their arrangement had started. Sherlock had always been a livewire, jumping and running and leaping, but John wasn’t sure he had looked the same as he once did now with the added little addition to their friendship was in place. Was it Sherlock who had changed, or John himself? Perhaps both of them were different? John was sure that if he could go back and tell his past self that he’d end up wanking Sherlock off whenever he was sexually frustrated, his past self would either laugh in his face or punch him. As would past Sherlock, in fact, past Sherlock would sneer and wave aside the very idea, calling it absurd and unneeded. 

Truthfully John didn’t know why Sherlock had thought it a good idea. Had he stayed up night after night, unable to function and forever lost to his body’s natural, primal, sexual urges and had grasped on to any idea that just so happened to whizz past in his head? Being Sherlock’s idea made it all the more daunting and weird, as Sherlock was hardly ever wrong and anything and everything he thought of had some sort of purpose, had a meaning, and was riddled and connected with all kinds of dazzling facts and crazy whirling routes to outcomes John had never thought of in his wildest dreams. 

John sighed and thought back to his continued reluctance and denial of his activities with Sherlock, even after he had already given in, and wondered what it all actually meant. Did it mean anything at all? If he had truly not wanted any of it, he could have walked away, or at least pushed Sherlock away and said no straight away the first time it had been brought up. So was there something under the surface, some sort of collection of feelings for Sherlock that he never knew he had; and did Sherlock return them? John needed to have some kind of answer by the end of the day, he needed to either tell Sherlock that even though he had made him and let him write up a new stupid contract, he’d changed his mind again and wanted to end it all completely and that’s that, or that he didn’t want to end it at all but he would like to know if there was more to it, more to everything than Sherlock was letting on. John couldn’t believe he was even thinking about it, but he had been getting his best friend off without proper reason, and so it needed an explanation of some form.

When John had finally plucked up enough courage he made his way down the stairs and hesitated only slightly before he stepped in through to the living room. He was pleasantly surprised to find it warmed from the heat of the lit fireplace and it relaxed him a lot more than he had thought it would. The living room was tidy; as was the kitchen, clear signs that Mrs Hudson had visited whilst John had been in his room, dreading Sherlock’s reactions and everything else for that day. John was hungry, having only picked at his bowl of cereal absentmindedly when he’d first awoke for some breakfast, and so he idly checked the time as he ambled slowly in, hovering between the kitchen and his chair. 

Sherlock was at the desk, writing in a worn notebook with an expensive looking pen, his face intent and brow furrowed, “Ah, yes. Tea would be lovely, thank you,” he murmured without lifting his gaze. “Toast too – Although the lemon and lime marmalade is almost gone. You’ll need to buy some more on your next shopping trip.”

The way Sherlock pompously popped the “P,” made John clench his jaw in frustration but he continued on, striding over to Sherlock’s hunched form, “Busy are you? Normally you’d still be in your pyjamas unless there’s a case on.”

“Not really,” Sherlock replied distantly, his pen scratching across the lined paper very elegantly for someone who was heatedly focused. John admired his handwriting for a moment and then scowled.

“Okay – Is that you’re “not really” busy or you’re “not really” normally in your pyjamas?” John asked, suddenly fixated on the way some of Sherlock’s curls were lightly resting against his neck and around his ear. The man was ridiculously ridiculous sitting prim and proper in a suit with his hair mussed and fuzzy from sleep, it gave him an almost innocent and therefore virginal appearance, and John’s gut turned oddly. He had almost forgotten that Sherlock was still a virgin, well, more or less.

Sherlock wrote a few more lines and then glanced over at him, sweeping his penetrating gaze over his face, paying the most attention to the creases around John’s mouth, “You want to ask me something,” he stated.

John swallowed and pushed his thoughts away, “I… did just ask you something.”

“No. It’s something else,” Sherlock said with a roll of his eyes. “Something you haven’t asked me yet but want to.”

“Ah.” John scratched his cheek and frowned, but nodded, “Yes.”

“Go on then.”

“Well,” John began with a deep breath that seemed to automatically annoy an impatient Sherlock, “It’s to do with—No, wait. I…I have two things to ask you. Two sets of things, rather.”

Sherlock waved a hand, “Fine. What is it? – I hope it has nothing to do with the state of your wardrobe? You don’t really wear those shirts anyway.”

“What? No,” John said with a series of blinks and then a glare, “Wait a moment, you’ve been in my wardrobe?”

“…No.” Sherlock replied. “Definitely not – Anyway, you were saying?”

John folded his arms but sighed, making a mental note to inspect his wardrobe and go through his belongings, and then lecture Sherlock, again, about boundaries and permission, “I…want to talk to you about the arrangement—”

Sherlock rolled his eyes again and turned back to his notebook, “Pass.”

“Sherlock, we need to discuss it,” John pushed, stepping closer to Sherlock’s side and being abruptly engulfed in his scent with dizzying results. That was a new reaction on his part, wasn’t it? John felt like he was going crazy. Things were definitely changing and no matter how hard he tried to ignore it and push it to one side, it seemed to be mounting and creeping up on him at random interims.

“We really don’t,” Sherlock replied with an uninterested tone, brushing John off rudely and giving him the cold shoulder. 

“What if I said that I…want to end it, again?” John told him. “– Yeah, what if I’ve thought it over again and decided that I really don’t want to do this or…that I’ve met someone?”

Sherlock glanced at him quickly, “You haven’t. In fact you’ve not been on a successful date that lasted more than a few days for a while now – And John, you’ve been saying you want to end it since it began. You want and need it as much as I do, you cannot keep lying to yourself and me about—”

“I know!” John exclaimed loudly, catching Sherlock off-guard and embarrassing himself a little. “I…I know – I know I keep contradicting myself and…and never actually ending it and I think we should discuss that.”

“Why?” Sherlock asked him with a sudden bunching of his brows, bending even further over the notebook. “Why can’t we just take it as it is? It’s hardly interfering with anything you do – If anything, I should be the one overly frustrated, not you. It gets in the way of my work, my thinking, it does bugger all to you! – So you have to give me a “helping hand”, so what? I’ve given you full leeway. You basically control the entire thing!”

John scoffed, “No I don’t!”

“Yes, you do.”

“No.”

“Afraid so.”

John reached over and closed the notebook with a thud, pushing it away, “I have no control over any of this,” he told him, grabbing Sherlock’s arm when he threw it up in exasperation. “You…it was all for and because of you. You’re the one in charge here.”

Sherlock’s nostrils flared as he smiled satirically, “If that were true and I was, then there wouldn’t be any need for this contract at all, because I’d be able to deal with—”

“Now,” John said abruptly, cutting Sherlock off and then lifting his eyebrows when Sherlock frowned. “If I’m in such control, then I want us to…do things now. Right now. Right here – Come on! You said I had control over the whole thing, so get up, get your trousers off and lets do this.”

“No,” Sherlock replied after a second, pulling his arm back and reaching for the notebook until John picked it up and lobbed it over his shoulder. “John…”

“This bloody agreement is all to please and pleasure you. You’re the boss. You pick and choose. You force me to—”

Sherlock stood up and loomed over John with a glare, “I’ve offered to return the favour, more than once, but you turn it down each and every time – Also, I do not force you. You can say no to me. I’ve said this numerous times too. But you won’t say no to me, because you don’t want to say no, because you like it and want it and enjoy it too much to deny it completely.”

John looked up at him slowly, “I…yes. I mean, no,” he said through his clenched teeth and a sudden blush that swept up his cheeks in an instant at his lie. However, he hardly knew what it was that he wanted or why he wanted it, so Sherlock definitely couldn’t know for sure. “That’s not true. Not…not really – I’ve tried to say no, haven’t I? I said no. I denied the contract. – For God sake, I avoided you for days after one incident! But I always give in to you…because…because I…”

Sherlock exhaled sharply through his nose, “What do you want from me? – Yes, the contract is solely based on whether or not I require your assistance, but it’s because of you that I need it in the first place! If I didn’t yearn for you so badly then—”

John didn’t realise he was reaching out to Sherlock until his hand cupped the crotch of Sherlock’s trousers, prompting him to immediately stop talking, “…Do… you even hear yourself? Do you not know what you’re saying to me?” John mumbled, feeling the dormant shape of Sherlock’s penis twitch and then looking down as Sherlock’s mouth quivered and compressed. He gawked, transfixed on his own hand against the dark fabric of Sherlock’s trousers in faint surprise, until Sherlock swatted him away and barged into his shoulder on his way to pick up the notebook.

“I-I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that. Listen, I’m…not that good at this – I don’t know where I was going with before but I wanted…we need to get to the route of why we’re doing what we are. We shouldn’t be doing this, Sherlock. Friends don’t do this—I know I said that already at some point but…but it’s true! You can’t be so naïve, and blind, not to realise that this is precarious and wrong and becoming hugely complicated!” 

“You’re making it complicated,” Sherlock said, squatting down to pick up the book. “It’s quite simple, John. I don’t know what’s bouncing around that head of yours, but if you really think that there is more to this arrangement, then you’re deluded—!”

“You said something to me once,” John said shortly, clearing his throat and then rubbing his face and scratching under his chin nervously. “It was, um, a while back. You said something. Something that didn’t necessarily change things, because they were changing anyway even before then, but—Christ, okay, I think you said it at any rate. Frankly, I’m not sure what I heard or…or if I heard you correctly.”

Sherlock straightened from his brief crouch, fiddling with his notes, his back to John, “Hm?”

“You, uh, I think you said that you loved me.” John said in a mutter, looking over at Sherlock to try and gauge his reaction.

“Hm.”

“But, like I said…I don’t know for sure if you said it. You were—I mean, we were busy and—”

Sherlock turned on his heel and strolled back to the desk, sitting down with a flourish and an aloof expression, “Yes.”

John blinked and stared at Sherlock in tensed silence, watching him open the notebook again and pick up his pen, “I…right. Right – Um. Is that yes, you said that or…?”

“Yes.” Sherlock replied brusquely, still excessively detached and exuding the same aura that he used with people he wanted nothing to do with. John had seen him do the same thing on cases and to Mycroft, purposely and obviously snubbing.

“…Do you know what you’re saying? Are you even listening to me?” John asked angrily.

“Yes.” Sherlock sighed, face impassive as he continued writing with calm and precise movements. His head was turned deliberately away from John, the curls at the back of his head catching the light streaming in from the nearby window, picking out the reddish brown highlights in his hair.

John pursed his lips in fury and flexed his fingers, “Okay…so…how long have you been in love with—”

“I didn’t say that,” Sherlock interrupted, and then turned to face John slowly. “I remember what I said – It was an answer to the question you asked me.”

“Question?”

“About my liking your touch,” Sherlock said, tilting his head and motioning distantly with his pen. “I said yes, and that I loved it.”

John squinted as he tried to recollect the scene and frowned deeply, “No.”

“Yes.”

“I’m pretty bloody sure you said “I love you,” not that you loved my touch—”

“I thought you said you didn’t know for sure?” Sherlock countered with a faint grin and an arrogant expression on his face, twirling the pen between his fingers and leaning back in the chair conceitedly. “You think I love you, John? Is that what all this is about? – Aw, do you love me too? Found that you have feelings for me? – Well, I must say, that does indeed complicate matters. You’re right about that.”

John jerked into action sharply and heaved Sherlock up by his collar with a snarl, “That’s not a denial, Sherlock,” he said into his face before he noticed something and looked down, eyeing the obvious bulge in Sherlock’s trousers. With his heart in his throat and his temples throbbing with his mounting anger, John arched his eyebrows and looked back up. “And that’s definitely not a denial.”

Sherlock clenched his jaw and struggled out of John’s grasp, “I find you sexually pleasing, yes,” he said with an incline of his head, “but that doesn’t mean I’m automatically in love with you, John. Get over yourself – this has nothing to do with love. It’s lust. A primal urge to—”

“Is that all it is?” John asked him suddenly. “Just lust and sexual frustration? – Would you be the same if someone else had given you a “helping hand” that day?”

“How can I answer that?” Sherlock sighed, waving his hands at John as if to shoo him away. “I’ve had enough of this – We’re going round and round in circles all the time. I actually don’t know how many times I’ve had to repeat myself over this, and I don’t care to continue to do so, just for you. I never repeat myself. I hate it. You’re extremely lucky that I don’t just—”

“What?” John cut in, heart racing so hard that John rubbed at his chest briefly. “Find someone else? Someone better? – Please, by all means, go do that!”

Sherlock scowled angrily, “I can’t go do that.”

“Because?”

“You know why.”

“Because you need me,” John said, almost panting by the time he closed the distance between them and reached slowly out to nab Sherlock’s shirtsleeve. Sherlock’s pupils dilated visibly as he glanced down, and John felt heat prickle the back of his neck. “I’m not gay. I don’t know what the bloody hell is happening with us, between us, but something is definitely changing. I can feel it – Christ, Sherlock, I’ve become so accustomed to this madness, so familiar with the looks you give me and the…the feel of you…that I…I…I hate when you make me wait for it.”

Sherlock’s head snapped up with a tremble of his fringe, and he swallowed thickly, staring at John with large pupils and an emerging flush of arousal stealing up his throat, “…When I…?”

“I’ve become impatient.”

“Impatient,” Sherlock echoed, voice cracking.

John nodded, feeling jittery, out of his depth and scared too death, “Very,” he whispered hoarsely. “I know it’s…it’s—shit, I know. Okay. I bloody know how this sounds. God, I hate this – And I hate you sometimes, too. For…for doing this to us, to me. Things were perfectly fine before, now they’re…all over the place. Now, if someone were to ask me to define our friendship, our relationship, I don’t think I could, because I honestly don’t know what we are. What is this? What are we, seriously? Why am I letting these things happen? Why are you? – There are so many unanswerable, and apparently infinite questions, that just keep dancing through my bloody head!”

“I…I’ve not done anything,” Sherlock uttered lowly, barely blinking.

John shot him a half-hearted glower and then pulled Sherlock close, strangely happy to see him stumble over his own feet, the bulge at his groin having grown in size, “I’m not in love with you,” John told him as Sherlock finally blinked, focusing on John’s face. “But I…shit—I am addicted to you. A little. Sort of – Look, I don’t know! I must feel something, I know that, you know that, there has to be something there for me to even consider giving in to you…”

“Where are you going with this?” Sherlock asked after a few tensed moments of silence where John’s heart continued to beat hard in his chest. John shifted his fingers to Sherlock’s wrist and was met by a similar rapid pulse, and the evidence that it was affecting Sherlock just as much, seemed to calm him momentarily.

“I…want to do it more,” John muttered. “I think—God, I don’t know! We should really stop this. Now. While it’s still sort of new…but…Yeah, I sometimes find myself wanting more. I don’t tell you, for obvious reasons, but I’ve been struggling with this since…well, for a while now. I kept ignoring it. But I miss it when it’s not there, when you’re not looking at me with such…wanton intent and I miss not getting to…to…have you more…”

Sherlock blinked again, “More.”

“…Yeah,” John breathed. “I don’t want…weeks or months to go by with nothing, until you then suddenly snatch me up in a frenzy – It might help calm you down, if anything, you know. If we…if you did more stuff. Or…we…you could get bored of it. You and me, both could. And then that’s it, it’s sorted and finished and I don’t have to want…things so much.”

“You want to touch me more?”

John coughed uneasily, “Y-yeah…”

“I… don’t need you to do that.” Sherlock muttered, and his heartbeat picked up and skipped a beat in his lie.

“Yeah, you do.”

“No,” Sherlock said slowly, shaking his head in a weak rebuff. “No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do, Sherlock.” John pushed his other hand against Sherlock’s erection mindlessly, “In fact, I think you need me to do it right now, unquestionably.”

“N-no,” Sherlock retorted with a faint hitch in his breath. “I don’t – I get erections, John. I’m a human male. It happens. And this is nothing compared to when I—”

John rubbed his palm along him and Sherlock’s jaw dropped with his next huff of breath, “I think we should do it now,” John heard himself say. “You feel and look just like you do when you’re in frantic need—”

“No! No. I…don’t need you. It’ll go away on its own,” Sherlock murmured and tried to angle away from John’s touch, his penis throbbing. “John, stop…”

“The contract doesn’t specifically say anything about—” John tried, but Sherlock cut him off as he moved his body aside to walk away. John drove his hand up Sherlock’s neck instead and pushed up and in for a sudden kiss that was hot and wet almost immediately.

Sherlock exhaled shakily and bumped into the edge of the desk as he leaned back, “I only want you when I’m in dire need…and I’m…not…” he mumbled against John’s lips, though he tilted his head when John slid his fingers up the back of his neck and returned the kiss with a low, almost anguished sound in the back of his throat.

John couldn’t believe what he was doing; he was playing with fire with what he had said and what he was currently doing with his mouth, which was making Sherlock melt and shiver in his hands. He couldn’t remember what he had planned to do or say any longer. Had he even said what he had rehearsed? What had been his plan again? He wasn’t sure if he was trying to get Sherlock to confess something or get him into bed, and it made him hotter and more confused than he had ever been before. What did he want? What was happening was more dangerous and wrong than his pervious actions.

As Sherlock opened his mouth more and more to John with a slick eagerness and a grunt, John felt a spark of lust so strong that he groaned openly and loudly, and reached down to grab Sherlock’s backside in both hands to bring him closer. The confident and zealous move, and John’s sudden ragged sound, caused Sherlock to physically jolt, and he separated their mouths with a rough gasp, blinking rapidly in shock with his cheeks very, very pink. John tensed with mortification, ready to jump back with a splutter, but the sight of Sherlock’s neck when Sherlock turned to actually look back at the position of John’s hands, suddenly wiped his mind blank.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Sherlock asked somewhat inanely of him, his brain noticeably scattered. “John, I…think we should—Ah!” His rapid exclamation only made John bite down harder on the patch of skin he’d trapped between his teeth and Sherlock arched with a full body tremor, scrambling at John’s arms and shoulders, then the desk behind him aimlessly, knocking something over. “Oh God…”

Once John came back to himself and pulled away, the mark he’d left on Sherlock’s neck was big and dark and wet, “Shit…I…” John said under his breath, his hands still grasping Sherlock’s backside. “I…don’t know where that came from or why I did that—”

“Y-yes! Yes. Yes…All right,” Sherlock said quickly between panting breaths, his eyes glazed and his skin gleaming with sweat. “Let’s do it now. Touch me – I’m so hard I can barely think! M-my legs are shaking…”

“Yeah?” John said with a low growl, and Sherlock nodded hysterically, scrabbling to undo his trousers, the crotch seemingly soaked through with pre-ejaculate. “What if…I don’t want to do that now?”

Sherlock froze and had to swallow several times and lick his lips before he could speak, “What? – But…isn’t this what you wanted?”

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” John muttered lowly, unable to take his eyes away from Sherlock’s mouth. He squeezed Sherlock’s buttocks when Sherlock glared and revelled in his gasping moan, grinning wildly as Sherlock arched up onto his toes and thrust out his hips. 

Sherlock breathed heavily, obviously enjoying the touch a little too much, and fell back onto a chair with a sprawl when John let go, “Oh…I get it,” he said as he blinked up at John, eyes still unfocused. 

“Yeah?”

“No,” he admitted instantly, frowning and mussing his hair as he tried to concentrate. “I…I can’t think…”

John laughed breathlessly and then shook his head, “I don’t even know what I…wanted in the first place,” he confessed. “Well, not anymore – Nothing makes sense. I don’t know what’s happening with…all of this. I think I just…wanted to know the reason why. Wanted to know what you felt about—”

“There’s no use talking, John,” Sherlock told him, his fringe faintly plastered to his forehead. “I’m not listening…”

John regarded him for a long few moments, and felt a cold sort of dread run down his spine as he tried to get back his composure and remember what he had wanted to say, “Look, basically, I think I just…just wanted to know what this was. Where it could go and what would happen to us if it went pear-shaped? – I’m not interested in this sort of stuff with men. Not before you. I’ve never been interested in doing this. It was barely even a passing fancy in my youth! Yet…yet here I am. Wanking you off whenever you demand it of me and…and kissing you, and then missing it when it’s over, for however many months it is that you leave it! It’s not healthy, it’s not right; yet I can’t stop myself. I try to, I do; you know I do. I’ve said no, I’ve tried pushing you away, pushing it away and ignoring it, but I just keep coming back and…”

Sherlock looked up at him from under his fringe and then slowly nodded, finishing undoing his trousers with languid movements, “Hm.”

“The first time I actually noticed that I was reacting to what we were doing—well, I’m sure you can remember,” John said, eyes dropping to watch Sherlock’s hands. “I…think I want it gone and want more of it at the same time. And to know that we won’t mess up our…our…”

Pushing himself up on to his feet again, Sherlock swayed and grabbed hold of John’s jumper, “I think I’ll add you squeezing my bum as an necessity on the agreement, because I liked that a lot and I really want you to do it again,” he whispered with a wonky grin, and kissed John quick and soft, before kissing him again with more eagerness as John giggled anxiously. “Touch me, John – Anywhere, everywhere…”

Reaffirming the kiss when Sherlock pushed closer, with clumsy, wonky and fervent steps, John shifted his stance, “Jesus, Sherlock…we…I don’t—”

Grabbing John’s left hand, Sherlock whinged lowly and pushed it inside his open fly, rubbing his clothed erection along John’s knuckles until John gave in to him and grasped out awkwardly, grinding his fingers over his familiar firm length. His shaft was extremely hot and stiff, the damp fabric of his underwear clinging snugly to the hardened line and shape of him, and John could tell just by sensation alone that Sherlock was already close to orgasm. The smell of his arousal was thick and heady, and John inhaled through his nose, bending Sherlock down by his hair to suck on his bottom lip. He felt too hot, too fidgety, and could hardly think. The situation was like nothing that had happened before, as there seemed to be an extra crackle in the air between them.

“Yes…” Sherlock breathed, rutting and sweating with desire, and John watched him through his lashes and swallowed thickly, feeling suddenly nervous and lost, but also too aroused to do more than lean his head back, leaving his hand on and around Sherlock’s cock.

John could faintly hear Mrs Hudson moving around downstairs, collecting the post, and he cleared his throat, fighting back his urges long enough to take Sherlock’s elbow and drag him through the kitchen and into Sherlock’s bedroom. Submissive and needy, Sherlock’s face slackened in pleasure as he staggered after him, knocking into the doorframe a little too roughly and slumping down on his bed. He panted and stared up at his ceiling for several seconds, and then all of a sudden jerked into motion and began almost tearing out of his clothes, wheezing when his flushed torso was bared to the room.

“Sherlock,” John said huskily, bending down to pin him to the mattress by his naked shoulders. “Calm down a second…just…wait…”

“I’m hot,” Sherlock whined throatily, pressing into John’s hand as he checked his temperature and stroked a path over the blush decorating Sherlock’s cheekbones. “Lord, you’re frustrating—Touch my penis, not my face! I need your hand on me again, John. You did this. Touch me more…hurry up! This is torture…you’re torturing me on purpose!” 

Huffing with a faint smirk, John blushed and shuffled back, “Do you need water?”

“No! What…what I need is you—I need…you…to…make me come,” Sherlock growled, throwing his shirt across his room and then fighting to escape his trousers and underwear, the mottled flush even scattered down his back and across his hips, peeking from around his toned thighs. 

His penis slapped wet and thick against his abdomen once it was freed, the protruding veins throbbing and his glans darkly red and shiny with desire. John blinked at the sight of it and felt a sympathetic twinge in his own erection, knowing that he could very much be nearing the same point himself as all the blood rushed downward. Stepping back unevenly, he watched Sherlock roll onto his front during his frustrated squirming, still fighting to kick his trousers off his feet with uncoordinated movements that only tangled him up further. It was amusing to see Sherlock as inelegant and desperate as he was currently, and John took a moment, committing it to memory as he tried to clear the fog of excitement from his mind.

The prolonged exposure to the pinked, plump curve of Sherlock’s uncovered arse and the lean arch of his back, however shot hot longing up from the depths of his gut and John stumbled forward before the thought to do so had fully formed in his head. He pushed down against Sherlock senselessly and jammed him against the duvet with his hip. Sherlock, in reaction, cursed and shuddered, and through his trousers, John could feel the heat radiating off his tensing his buttocks as Sherlock suddenly began to fumble in a familiar writhe.

“No, no,” John said under his breath, and forced his hand between the bed and Sherlock’s pelvis to stop his building orgasm with a rough squeeze of his hand.

Sherlock pushed up onto his elbows with a reverberating outcry, “Don’t!—What are you doing? Let me…!” he whimpered through gritted teeth, bucking into John’s tight hold and briefly along the duvet with a flexing of his back. John thrust into his backside, roughly and impulsively, and Sherlock froze with a mangled moan, lifting his hips and arching his head back. “O-oh!”

Without being fully in control of his body or thoughts, John suddenly remembered all their earlier sexual events at once, and even some memories of his time with past girlfriends. He had had sex with a woman in the same position as he found himself in with Sherlock, and the evoked image of her slender back and upturned bottom fluttered in the back of his mind as he pushed into the pert and shaking muscles of Sherlock’s behind again, and then began instinctively grinding. Sherlock’s cock gave a hard throb with each practised press of John’s clothed groin, oozing pre-ejaculate, and John set up a rhythm with a wispy moan, pushing his free hand down on the middle of Sherlock’s shoulder blades gently.

Sherlock reached back and caught his long fingers onto John’s jumper, pulling on it until John let go of Sherlock completely to yank it off over his head. He replaced his hands to Sherlock’s lean hips, smoothed them up his sweaty back, and then thrust sharply to watch Sherlock’s hair spring.

“Mm!—Yes…t-touch me all over,” Sherlock murmured with a husky, slurring tone, and leaned his chest up for John to skim his fingertips over his straining nipples and down his stomach to his penis again, where John held back another obvious and winding orgasm. Sherlock scrambled for John’s hands with a whine. “Fuh-fuck! John, for God sake, just let me—!” 

The playful, stinging slap came as a surprise to both Sherlock and John himself, and he swallowed, shocked at what he’d done and staring at his tingling hand as he gave another shaky, instinctive thrust, before he backed off entirely, “I…I didn’t…” he babbled, watching the heaving expanse of Sherlock’s ribs and the soft indents above his quivering buttocks. “Christ—I’m sorry, Sherlock—”

“Shut up,” Sherlock whispered breathlessly, his body shaking uncontrollably and then going tense and still for a short time, his muscles bunching with minute tremors. He remained motionless until John shuffled over to lay a gentle hand on his lower back, and then he unexpectedly convulsed with a broken whimper, rutting unevenly and pushing up to ejaculate hard across his bed in high arcs. 

John rushed forward to catch him as he swayed back with an overpowering series of thrusts, and grabbed him around the waist, “Bloody hell—Careful!” he exclaimed.

Sherlock whimpered again and then hissed, shaking so violently that John almost lost his grip and his sweat-slicked skin, “Oh God…that…that almost hurt it was so intense,” he gasped, clutching at John’s arms.

“I barely touched you—”

“Shut up,” Sherlock laughed with a sigh, dropping his head back on John’s shoulder with a dopey grin and a heavy lidded glance. John smiled slowly at him and blushed, nervously helping Sherlock to sit on the edge of the bed before being enveloped and kissed languidly.

John shivered and deepened the kiss, allowing Sherlock’s hands to drift to his bulged groin for a moment, “I…better get the kettle on,” he muttered, pushing Sherlock away and clearing his throat. “Toast you said?”

“John, for goodness sake, let me just—”

“Maybe later,” he cut in loudly and avoided Sherlock’s surprised and eager face as he scrambled for his jumper and stalked away, his trousers tented and his face red.


	10. Torn asunder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I am sorry for the delay! <3
> 
> Writer's block is seriously kicking my arse with quite a few stories. I seem to be able to come up with new ones but am almost unable to continue ones I already have, which is just as annoying as it sounds, I can tell you.

As it turned out for John, “maybe later” became a week later, mainly because of a sudden call for an interesting case that took all of Sherlock’s attention, leaving very little room for anything, or anyone, else. A week in which John could hardly keep his mind and eyes off Sherlock long enough to be of any help whatsoever, something that irritated Sherlock to such a degree that he had sent John back to the flat half way through and carried on the investigation alone. John, embarrassed and ashamed, had done as he was told and returned to mope around, cleaning up idly, making small talk with Mrs Hudson, and glaring at the Television. 

He thought over everything that had happened up to that point and more importantly, over his feelings, both on the matter at hand – so to speak – and on his forever whizzing and whirling thoughts. John’s feelings had been sporadic and contradictory from the very start, and although they still seemed vaguely the same as back then, he was relatively sure that he had finally decided on something since his confident confrontation with Sherlock previously and the acts that had followed. 

Things had shifted even further between them. John had taken control and reduced Sherlock to a whimpering mess, and John had liked it; more than liked it in fact, he had loved it. The only reason he had not let Sherlock return the favour was only to do with his nervousness at being touched himself, like he had touched Sherlock. He had spent a long while being the only one of them to touch the other in a sexual way, and things had all been centred around Sherlock’s pleasure and not his own; something that John hadn’t really minded too much. It had been a task to undertake, a job to be done, and John had felt that his own arousal had been unneeded at that time. Not to mention John had never once been touched sexually by another man before. He had been petrified about how he would have reacted.

A small part of John was still awkward, confused and panicked over his newfound sexuality, but it was all fine, it had always been fine and it would always be fine. John was scared, but he was also excited and interested in how he had missed such an important part of himself. Had he always liked the same gender? Had he always been bisexual? John couldn’t find any moment in his past where he had looked at another man and thought and felt the things he did about Sherlock.

The immense sexuality crisis that he had suffered after the unforgettable shower incident had not been the only situation at which he had had such a crisis, and by the time that he had gotten home he had suffered through yet another panic attack over his future, Sherlock’s future, as well as their future together. Afterward, John had glared at his reflection and told himself to grow up, and that he should really get over it already. Being bisexual was a surprise, yes, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

When Sherlock finally returned to the flat, he did so with a flashy sweep, and hung up his coat before he then strolled over to where John was sitting at the kitchen table to push his nose and mouth into the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply. John flushed but arched his eyebrow and turned his head in slightly, feeling Sherlock’s cold curls brush along his jaw and cheek. Sherlock remained in place for almost a full minute; before he straightened, took John’s mug of tea and slid down to sit at the table as well, taking a large and quenching gulp with barely a wince. 

“Solved it then?” John said after clearing his throat and absentmindedly touching where Sherlock had just been nestled. “Was it the sister, like you surmised before we—?”

“Lestrade thought it was the sister,” Sherlock scowled, taking another sip and then slumping down with his head in his arms, and John regarded his hair for a moment, reaching out to card a nervous hand through it. “Is this your way of apologising? If so, it’s extremely weak.”

“Apologising?” John frowned, taking his hand back awkwardly. “Why would I apologise?”

Sherlock lifted his head long enough to shoot John a pointed glare, “Have you forgotten that I had to send you home like some delinquent child? – You were practically salivating at the mouth. I would have been flattered if I hadn’t have been so annoyed.”

“I was not salivating,” John retorted.

Sherlock snorted and leaned up onto his elbows to finish John’s tea, ignoring John’s noise of complaint, “You were useless, John. Utterly useless, and you’re normally imperative to how I work, how I think – Granted your presence now both aids and thwarts my thought process, but that is somewhat besides the point. I need you to assist me, as no one else will put up with my demands.”

“You can say that again,” John mumbled, snatching the empty mug from him to put in the sink. “Well, I’m not apologising. I did nothing wrong.”

Sherlock scoffed, “Because of you I was immeasurably distracted and then so frustrated that I had to send you away, and on top of all that it took me an extra day and a half to actually solve the bloody thing!”

“You can’t blame that all on me!”

“Yes I can, and I am!”

John glared over at him and crossed his arms, “I’m amazed you even noticed my existence during the case, let alone got frustrated enough to send me home! – And with me gone, how were you not able concentrate? I was out of your way, wasn’t I? I’m not always right there beside you for every case. You’ve solved some without me before, I had thought you could do it again.”

“When you were there, you distracted me with your mouth, and hands, and face, and smell, and the way you kept looking at me like you wanted to tear my clothes off!—”

“Excuse you! I did not look at you that way!”

“—and then, when you were gone, I was distracted because I missed you! – I can’t win! Either way I’m struggling now,” Sherlock rambled in infuriation, standing up and walking over to John with a dark look. “This is all your fault, therefore I think you should apologise. For everything. For making me yearn for you so much that I can hardly breathe! For making me want you and need you more than I ever did before! For making me go downright insane without you in some way or another; be it your steady, loyal presence or your hand on my skin! – I mean, come on, that arrangement? It’s crazy. Unthinkable. Yet it was my idea and…and I actually made myself believe I needed it, that we needed it, just so you would touch me again, so I could think properly without having my mind bombarded with memories of how good it felt with you touching me, and how much I desperately wanted to feel it again…”

John swallowed roughly, glowered up at Sherlock who looked like he was fighting a wince at his slip, and then held out his hand, “Give me the contract.”

“What? Why? – No.”

“Give it to me.”

“No – I didn’t mean that you should end it, John. You can’t. And, perhaps I was a little hasty – it does make some sort of sense, only not completely coherent—”

John nudged his hand sharply into Sherlock’s torso, “Now.”

Sherlock grimaced, clenched his eyes shut, and then turned around and headed for the desk in the living room, rolling up his sleeves and digging around in one of the drawers, “Why must you constantly change your mind?”

“Give it over,” John ordered, and strolled to meet Sherlock halfway, taking the paper quickly. “And the other one.”

“What other one?” Sherlock drawled, looking down his nose at John.

“Do you really think I’m that stupid not to notice that this is not the only one? Give me the copy, and give me the first one you wrote too, the original, because I know you have it.”

Sherlock’s jaw twitched but he didn’t retort or deny any of what John had said, and slapped the copy he had from his coat pocket into John’s hand, as well as another two hidden in another drawer of the desk. The first and overly original contact that John never actually signed, was in Sherlock’s bedroom, and John followed him in there to make sure there wasn’t yet another copy, before taking all of the pieces of paper and ripping them up. Sherlock watched impassively and then winced when John crumpled all the small pieces together and stalked to throw the wad into the kitchen bin.

“Okay. All right,” John said after taking a few deep breaths. “No more written contracts—”

“You want this as much as I do, and you’ll just succumb again and then bother me by asking me to create yet another—”

“—I’m not finished!” John exclaimed, cutting Sherlock off and then looking away when Sherlock glared at him. “Listen, we’ve…done this thing for…a while now – I don’t want to know how long, so don’t even start! – Anyway, the contract was always something that was used as a way to explain away what we were doing, for me and for you. It was stupid. It was very stupid. And I should never have agreed to anything like it, verbal or otherwise, but I did because…because…”

Sherlock frowned at him gently and then shook his head, “Don’t you dare ask me—”

“At first I thought it was a way for you to control me,” John continued, folding his arms behind his back and straightening his spine as he reigned in as much confidence as he could. “I thought that for the longest time…still sort of think it – but then I thought that maybe it was an excuse, or a…a way to overlook what was actually going on between us.”

“John, don’t.”

John lifted his chin, “You were right. I suppose you always were, which shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise to me anymore—I could have stopped and walked away from the situation and you, at any time. You may get me to throw you a pen or to drop whatever I’m doing at any time of day to come to you at a moments notice, but…that’s because, although I complain, which I have a right to do, I…I still choose to do what you ask. I choose. You’re not my superior and I’m not forced to take orders from you. I choose to do it. I always have chosen to do what you say, and I always will.”

Sherlock fiddled with his sleeve awkwardly but tightened his expression, “John, listen to me—”

“I’ve been lying to myself. I…must have been, for me to do what I’ve done and actually begin to… enjoy it to the point where I was impatient and bloody disappointed when you seemed not to want or need me for weeks at a time,” John murmured, locking eyes with Sherlock. “But I also think you’ve been lying to yourself too.”

“No.”

“Yeah.” John retorted and jerked after Sherlock when he turned to stalk away, grabbing him and turning him around to kiss him close-mouthed and chaste. The sudden kiss had the immediate reaction of calming him and he sagged under John’s hands with a quiet and shaky breath through his nose. “I don’t think we need a contract anymore. We can just…do…stuff…together, whenever we want to.”

Sherlock pulled away and blinked at him, “What?” 

John cleared his throat and took a step back, “Yeah. I…really don’t think we need those contracts if I’m… so amenable to…do it without them anyway. Whenever you like—well, not exactly whenever, but you don’t need to brandish it at me and make it feel like a chore that needs doing.”

“It is a chore,” Sherlock complained. “Do you think I enjoy being aroused by you to the point of agony?”

“Agony?”

“Well, it’s hardly enjoyable being erect and covered in pre-ejaculate, is it?” Sherlock countered sarcastically. “And then I have to wait for the right moment or go off and find you – Chafing is a man’s worst enemy, John. Something, which I’ve come to experience quite a lot in the recent months.” 

John snorted on a giggle and then waved away Sherlock’s glower, blushing hotly, “All right—Well, fine, this chore is something I’m fine with doing without a contract then. I get to turn you down, of course, but…when have I ever done that?”

“So…you’re not going to ask me some ridiculous question then?”

“Not unless asking you to basically be my “sex buddy” is ridiculous?”

“…It is, definitely, but I didn’t think you were going to ask me that,” Sherlock chuckled, looking slightly meek and tongue-tied. “I thought it was something else entirely.”

John frowned and then suddenly stared at Sherlock with wide eyes, “You…you thought that I’d ask you to be my boyfriend or something, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Oh my God, you did!” John laughed, grabbing at Sherlock again as he span on his heel to leave again. “No, no! Oi, wait—I’m sorry, okay? It’s just…a little bloody funny that you would think that.”

“How is it? You’re a romantic,” Sherlock snapped, crossing his arms and then tucking in his chin in embarrassment. “It doesn’t matter. You didn’t. And I’m happy you didn’t and I agree to what you propose—Although, even that is some sort of contract, is it not? I imagine that we’d have to put an end to our actions if you were to find yourself another woman?”

“Or a…another man,” John mumbled with a jerky shrug and a turning of his stomach, wishing he could take it back even as he carried on speaking. “If I like this sort of stuff, you know, with you, then…I…must be…it must mean that I’m bisexual or something. Right?”

“No,” Sherlock replied.

“Um, it kind of does.”

“Nope.”

“Sherlock,” John said, taking a calming breath. “I enjoy touching—”

“Me,” Sherlock finished for him, lifting his eyebrows. “You’ve only done it with me.”

“Yes,” John said, stretching out the word. “And you’re a man. Or you were last time I checked – Not got something to tell me have you?”

“I’m also just one man – How can you know that you’d enjoy it with other men if you have yet to try it with another man?” Sherlock asked him.

John blinked and frowned, squinting at Sherlock in confusion, “What are you saying here? – Do you want me to go out and touch another man’s cock to find out if I swing both ways or not?”

“No, of course not,” Sherlock snorted, his right hand suddenly attaching itself to the edge of John’s jumper and fiddling with the hem in both a suggestive and timid sort of way. The sight shot a flare of heat to John’s groin, with a rather dizzying effect.

“Right, well,” John muttered, glancing between Sherlock’s hand and his face, and then slowly stroking his fingers up the inside of Sherlock’s wrist, “whatever the case…I suppose it does mean we’d have to stop, if either one of us—”

“Not me,” Sherlock told him, shaking his head and avoiding eye contact. “I’m not interested.”

“You weren’t before, no, but you must be now?” John sighed with a roll of his eyes and one shoulder. “After all of this?”

“It’s only you I’m interested in doing “all of this” with,” Sherlock said, his heart racing under John’s fingertips as John stroked the tender skin of his elbow.

John swallowed and coughed, “I’m sure that’s not completely true, and you can’t say that for sure anyway, not when you haven’t tried – You might find that someone else is better at giving you—”

“Nope,” Sherlock said shortly and stepped close to John with a quick smile. “Just you.”

John stared at him with a flush and another flare of heat between his legs, and let his eyes flutter closed when Sherlock bent down and pushed his mouth and nose into the crook of his neck again. He breathed hotly there for a few moments of silence, and then curled his fingers around John’s biceps warmly, and suddenly dropped to his knees to embrace John’s middle. John stumbled in surprise and then dropped one hand into Sherlock’s hair with a huff of amusement and nervousness, feeling the way he had already strained the crotch of his jeans at the action.

“This doesn’t mean you can use your hold over me to your advantage,” Sherlock mumbled into his stomach.

“Yeah it does.”

“No, it really does not.”

“Totally does,” John smirked, carding his fingers through Sherlock’s hair and then lifting his brow in challenge when Sherlock upturned his face. “You’ll get used to it, don’t worry – Soon I will have no sort of influence over you whatsoever. You’ll soon get bored.”

Sherlock poked him with his nose, “Never.”

“Never say never,” John muttered.

“I could never get bored of you, John Watson.”

“Charmer,” John huffed again and the blush on his cheeks burned hotter, “All right, all right – Up you get.”

“You like me here,” Sherlock suddenly purred in the material of his jumper, fingers walking to the waistband of John’s jeans meaningfully. “And, you said I could return the favour…remember?”

“I…yeah,” John said, clearing his throat and shuddering awkwardly when Sherlock traced the shape of him through the denim. “But, um, not here, yeah?”

“Why not?”

“Anyone could…walk in.”

“Mm,” Sherlock nodded, tilting his head as he thumbed open the button to John’s fly, “How positively…dangerous.”

John choked on a sharp inhale, “Shut it you git…I…I do not want Mrs Hudson to walk in to be met with me getting a blowjob in the middle of our kitchen.”

“Is that what you want?” Sherlock asked, his smile fully wicked and supercilious as he lowered the pitch of his voice. “A blowjob?—”

“Don’t say it like that – Jesus!” John grumbled, covering his face with both his hands and then dropping them to his sides when Sherlock tugged his zip down unhurriedly. “And, well, what else are you going to do from down there?”

“Enjoy the good view?”

“Ha-ha—Look, could you get up?” John asked, tugging on his shoulders and licking his dry lips when Sherlock obeyed only to nuzzle his jaw. He took several steadying breaths and took Sherlock’s hand, admiring the way they looked holding hands momentarily, and then led him through to Sherlock’s bedroom. “Wait—Are you…you know…affected then? I mean, I don’t want to force you if you’re not exactly in the mood? We could do this some other time. I don’t mind waiting. I’m fine actually, really. Fine. Just…fine.”

Sherlock raised his eyebrow and pushed their entwined hands into the bulge in his trousers, grinding John’s knuckles eagerly into the seam of his fly until it almost rubbed the skin of John’s hand raw. John swallowed and nodded, yanking his hand back and motioning to Sherlock’s bed vaguely, not exactly sure what he was asking or what he wanted. Sherlock, however, stepped up to the bed and began undressing almost instantly, exposing the pinked skin of his torso with quick but clumsy movements.

John cleared his throat, “So, um, this thing between us…should it be regular?”

“You only just ripped the contracts up,” Sherlock groused, turning around to untie and pull off his shoes, the muscles in his arms and stomach flexing. “I told you that you’d want me to write another—”

“No! I…no, I just want to know if…” John scratched his chin nervously, shrugged, and let out a tense laugh. “I don’t know what I want.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and stood back up after taking off his socks, getting to work on his trousers, “Well, I know what I want,” he said and nodded toward John meaningfully. “Take your clothes off.”

“Lovely.”

“Please take your clothes off,” Sherlock revised, shooting John a tight smile. “Better?”

“I’m still a little…iffy and, um, well, truthfully I’m completely and utterly out of my depth with this,” John said honestly, picking at his jumper and then pulling it up over his head, kicking Sherlock’s bedroom door closed. 

“Why? – You’ve done things with me already. What is there to be nervous about?”

“What I’ve already done is one thing…this is…this will be something else,” John tried to explain; already feeling oddly self-conscious with the way Sherlock was staring at him. 

Sherlock stepped out of his trousers and moved over to him, “Perhaps it’ll help if I assisted you,” he murmured and curled his fingers into the vest John wore beneath his jumper, rolling it up to expose John’s bare stomach. Sherlock gazed at it with a new flush of interest and trailed the back of his hand through the trail of blonde hair leading down from below his navel. “I’ve seen you naked anyway, remember? Many times – Although there is one time I certainly shan’t be forgetting anytime soon.”

“Shut it,” John grinned and glanced up at Sherlock from under his brow slightly, watching as Sherlock smiled wide and open, and then impatiently heaved on his vest. John sighed and pulled it off, dropping it to the floor and allowing Sherlock to smooth his hands up and down his chest and back.

The sensation of Sherlock’s touch was nice and familiar and exciting and John clenched his toes when Sherlock rolled his nipples under his palms and then traced his scar idly, “I want to try frottage,” Sherlock told him bluntly. “If you’re open to suggestions on how to proceed?”

“Jesus Christ, the things you come out with,” John laughed breathlessly, adjusting his stance when Sherlock scratched his nails through the scattering of hair on his chest, “Are you always going to be so… frank about it all?”

“Stupid question,” Sherlock replied, smirking when John nodded in agreement with a dismissive hand gesture, “I can try and be more… coy, if you’d like?”

“You? Coy?”

“If you want.”

“I’d not be able to take anything you said or did seriously,” John told him with another laugh, slowly and subconsciously rocking into Sherlock’s hands. “Just…keep things a little more modest when we’re in company, okay?”

Sherlock’s smirk curled a little broader at his words but he didn’t reply, and instead bent his knees and rubbed bodily up against John’s front, dragging the naked skin of his chest along John’s own with a purposeful twist to make sure that their nipples touched. He huffed in pleasure and kissed John’s collarbone, throat and chin, pressing his forehead to John’s temple and hooking his fingers into the loops of his jeans to rut properly against him. The feeling of Sherlock’s erection nudging into and alongside his own made John’s body tense in unease and ignite in roaring arousal instantaneously, and he shuddered and walked Sherlock backward until the backs of his knees hit the bed and he sat down, pushing his face once more into John’s stomach.

“Touch me,” Sherlock demanded in a shaky wet breath, glancing up at John with blown pupils, “Please.”

John inhaled slowly to steady his nerve and boost his resolve, and reached to push one hand up against Sherlock’s hot cheek, trailing the other down his shuddering stomach to cup him through his underwear, “Jesus—Are you always like this?”

“Not always,” Sherlock replied as he tipped his head back with a silent gasp and lifted his hips. 

“Seems like you are – Whenever we…do…things…you know, you’re—”

“In agony,” Sherlock grinned, arching one brow and then reaching for John’s jeans again. “I want to taste you – Can I?”

John grabbed Sherlock’s wrists tightly in apprehension, “Right now? I thought you wanted…that other thing?”

Sherlock shrugged and wiggled his fingers, “No time like the present – Plus, you seemed interested in it before, in the kitchen. And you have an exceedingly large fascination with my mouth. And—”

“All right. Shut up. I get it,” John grumbled with a faint blush, and took yet another large inhale, before loosening his grip enough to signal for Sherlock to continue. Sherlock parted John’s open jeans further and peeled down his underwear, glancing up at John’s face fleetingly and then staring, unabashed, at John’s erection, as it was uncovered. 

John looked away quickly and clenched his eyes shut, stroking and lightly scratching at Sherlock’s forearms with an anxious shifting. The thought that he was going to have Sherlock’s mouth wrapped around his cock was jarring and John took a few seconds to try and understand what it was he was actually feeling about the prospect. A fluttering of nervousness still lingered in his gut but it was faint and marginally overpowered by the throbbing arousal that came in intense tingling ripples from every point of contact between them. His heart leapt as Sherlock’s fringe brushed his stomach and John peeked down through his lashes to watch Sherlock push his underwear and jeans low on his hips.

“Have you…um…done this before?” John asked, oddly embarrassed at the sight of his own engorged penis and the shiny coloured head. He suddenly recalled the look and feel of Sherlock’s own, and licked his lips as he compared the differences between them once again.

Sherlock shuffled closer, perching on the very edge of the bed, and smoothed his hands up and down John’s waist, “I think so.”

“…You think so?”

“Mm,” Sherlock replied, seeming to enjoy the continued caresses of John’s fingers over his arms. “Like I told you, I’m not completely naïve when it comes to sexual activities. I have done some things – I just haven’t partaken in penetration, and the things that I have done I do not completely remember. Must have been dull and useless, I suppose. Only explanation on why I deleted them.”

“Brilliant—But you’ve done stuff with men before then?”

Sherlock looked up from his inspection of John’s angry and impatient looking erection and scowled, “Why do you constantly ask for my sexual preference?”

“I wasn’t! – I just…want to know because…because…” John fumbled, frowning and glancing away when Sherlock leaned forward to rest his chin on John’s sternum. “Stop looking at me like that – I’m just curious. You know everything about me and—”

“Not everything,” Sherlock said with a roll of his eyes, pushing his mouth into John’s stomach and then pulling him forward with his hands on John’s hips. “You smell heavenly by the way, just marvellous.”

“Sherlock…”

“Isn’t it enough that I’m doing things with you?” Sherlock mumbled in annoyance against John’s skin, kissing his navel and then turning his head down. 

With a warm puff of breath at the tip of John’s erection Sherlock pressed his tongue to the skin for a taste, and then swiftly engulfed him eagerly, almost taking John all the way to the root before his throat contracted and he pulled off with a slick sound. John shuddered and gaped at the nape of Sherlock’s neck, driving one hand through his hair with a sudden broken moan, and tried to remember how to breathe.

“Good?” Sherlock asked huskily, lips moving against the sensitive skin of John’s glans. “You taste just as divine too—”

“God, shut up,” John huffed, and arched his hips up when Sherlock took him back into his mouth, surrounding him in wet heat and applying an almost perfect amount of suction that made John’s eyes roll back. 

Sherlock took his time, holding John still and bobbing his head in a teasing and slow rhythm that made John grind his teeth and grunt lowly, his hands stroking through Sherlock’s hair to wander down the back of his bowed throat and shoulders. It wasn’t the first time that he had received a blowjob, but after months and months of nothing but his own hand, it certainly felt like it, and John rolled his hips forwards with an almost violent tremble. He felt somewhat lost, stuck between the pleasure from Sherlock’s mouth on him and the whirling thoughts that made his fingers twitch to respond in kind in some way. 

Leisurely Sherlock tilted his head back up and John’s cock glided wetly from his lips, smearing saliva and pre-ejaculate down his chin, which he then pushed into the skin of John’s stomach when he pressed another kiss there, “Do you want to taste me?” Sherlock whispered, his grin sharp and teasing as he caught John’s rapid and nervous expression through his fringe. “You don’t have to.”

“I…I’ve never…done that,” John muttered, swallowing roughly when Sherlock arched into the touch of his fingers like a cat and smoothed both of his large hands up John’s back. 

“Touch me then,” Sherlock sighed in desire and lay back on the bed, pulling John down to hover over him and pushing one of John’s hands to his twitching penis. “I need it.”

“You…get really worked up quite quickly don’t you?” John mumbled without actually thinking about the words he was saying as he took the well-known shape of Sherlock in his grip and pressed close, leaning down on one elbow and automatically lifting one knee to the edge of the bed.

“Obviously. It’s you – And I’ve been thinking about this ever since I sent you home for being a disrupting idiot,” Sherlock replied, his hissing voice shifting from too deep, to too high, and then cracking in pleasure. He shuffled madly, unable to keep still. “God…it feels so good…”

“…Yeah?” John breathed, staring at the fluttering of expressions over Sherlock’s face as he stroked him and pressed in closer, feeling his own erection bump into his gripping and twisting fingers. “Say… say what you said before…” 

Sherlock blinked sluggishly and frowned, “What?” he slurred, his eyes narrowing and sharpening for a split second, only to become once more unfocussed. “Oh. Right. How very egotistical of you. – Fine. I…I love your touch.”

“No.”

“But that’s what I—”

“No it wasn’t, Sherlock.”

Sherlock scowled but it smoothed instantly and he scrunched his eyes closed, flinging his head back and covering his face, “…I love you,” Sherlock muttered into his own hands. “Now, stop…being an idiot and…and let me—”

John’s grin was wide and virtually manic, as a tremendous flush of arousal and endearment made his toes curl and push against the carpet, “Fine…” he said, shoving Sherlock further up the bed and following him eagerly, suddenly pushing their bodies flush with one another in a mindless rush.

The reaction to the unexpected skin on skin contact was immediate and Sherlock bucked and shuddered beneath him, his erection throbbing warningly in John’s hand, “Y-yes!”

Looking away from Sherlock’s pleasure-crumpled face, John adjusted his grip on Sherlock’s hardened penis, twisting his wrist deftly around the head and stroking the frenulum, “Say it again…”

Sherlock arched his back, looking annoyed, but then squirmed and pushed up to kiss him softly, reaching for John’s open jeans, “No,” he said between three moist kisses and an unsure moan, rocking up against him. “Now, take your trousers off completely.”

“Hang on,” John mumbled and fought to push his hands away as Sherlock hooked his legs around John’s waist and pulled him close. “Sherlock…wait a moment—”

“Mm, no,” Sherlock hummed deeply and pushed down John’s jeans so hard that the seams creaked in complaint, dragging roughly down the skin of his thighs and knees in a harsh burn of material.

“Sherlock!” John hissed, grabbing his wrists and pinning him down strongly. “Wait! I…I’ll do it.”

Sherlock looked surly, panting hard, “Hurry up then. I told you that I want to try frottage – I’d rather do it without you still partly clothed.”

“Yeah, well… you want to do a lot of things it seems, just bloody wait a second!” John griped as he rolled alongside Sherlock on the bed, rubbed the reddened skin of his thighs, and then clumsily rid himself of his jeans and underwear with a flush to his cheeks at Sherlock’s blatant and impatient staring. “Stop it, will you? I’m nervous enough – this is still all new to me. You know, with a man. I just…it’s a little weird.”

“When can one of us be penetrated?” Sherlock asked out of the blue, his eyelids fluttering as he squirmed and stretched out across the mattress. “I’d really like to fuck you – I’ve been dreaming about it.”

John froze and then sat up next to him, half-covering his bared crotch, “Sherlock…you—you can’t just ask me that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m barely able to do this, for Christ’s sake!”

Sherlock blew his fringe from his face in irritation and slithered to the centre of the bed with a grace that made John glare. Sherlock’s body, mottled with the blush of his heightened arousal, was lithe and vibrating with need, the dip of his spine, arcs of his collarbone, and the lines of his pelvis glistening with sweat. John couldn’t help but admire him as he moved into position, resting his head back on the pillows and parting his legs in invitation, an expression of utter anticipation on his face. Sherlock motioned to him petulantly and then reached for him a second later, running his fingertips up John’s back.

“I would very much like to orgasm with you now,” he informed John with an expanding, suggestive smile. “We can talk about penetration later.”

John scrubbed at his face in mortification, “Sherlock!”

“Come on, John,” Sherlock whined, snagging at John’s hip. “I need your touch so I can—”

John turned, pushed up onto his knees and crawled inelegantly over, bullying his way between Sherlock’s legs without thinking too much of it, and then pressing down against Sherlock completely. The feeling shot an overpowering jolt of satisfaction through John’s entire body and he rocked forward with a deep moan, closing his eyes tightly, while Sherlock grabbed at him and clamped his abruptly trembling thighs into John’s sides in pleasure, rutting and rubbing up against John with a loud and rumbling groan that vibrated through them both. Their erections slid slickly together, and John quickly pushed up to his elbows and slipped one hand down to take hold of them both, squeezing their hardened shafts tight as the burn of his impending orgasm loomed far too quickly.

“Shit…” John panted, gritting his teeth and adjusting his knees. “Sh-Sherlock…keep still a second…”

Sherlock went taut and still, barely breathing, and John took a few steadying breaths before he glanced at his face. Sherlock blinked at him, let out a gasp and whimpered suddenly, flailing and kicking the heel of one foot into the small of John’s back as he rutted in a series of jerky thrusts and growled in sudden orgasm. The first pulse of ejaculate spurted nosily from the clench of John’s fingers and he twitched, looking down and letting go to be covered in the next several splatters thickly. Sherlock shook and moaned in a long sigh, relaxing gradually into the mattress as his penis twitched and oozed another weak pulse onto his juddering abdomen.

“Sorry,” he apologised in a wispy whisper, not sounding or looking sorry at all. Sherlock gazed up at John as his heaving chest calmed, and then ran a hand through John’s hair, tugging him down for a slow but messy kiss that shot white hot lust straight down John’s spine. 

“It’s fine…” John mumbled against Sherlock’s lips when he had stopped to breath into John’s mouth instead. 

“It took even me by surprise – The feeling of being together I mean. I quite like. Immensely,” Sherlock explained and then extended one hand down to smear into his own ejaculate, coating his fingers before he then took John in hand without permission. He titled his head in consideration, kissing John lightly after he jerked in reaction at the overly wet and warm touch. “You feel good in my hand and my mouth, by the way. Although, I might have to do it a few more times to make sure. – Your touch certainly is quite addicting. No matter what part of you is touching me—I still love your hands though. So, could you perhaps stroke my face or... run them over my scalp?”

“Good God – Will you stop saying such things,” John grunted, fighting the urge to pull away in anxiety and gazing down at Sherlock’s eyes as he stroked John slowly. He urged John into another kiss with a gentle nudge of his nose and groaned when John began rolling his hips into the rhythm set by Sherlock’s hand.

Sherlock seemed to know exactly how John liked to be touched and teased and stroked, and John wondered vaguely how he could know such things as he moved a little harder above him, deepening their kiss with a low grunt at Sherlock’s playful and masterful squeeze around the tip of his cock. All thoughts and unease left his head as he bucked into the lubricated grasp of Sherlock’s long fingers, and he went easily along with Sherlock when he pushed John onto his back and straddled his waist once John’s thrusting became erratic. Sherlock panted heavily against his chin and made a low rumble in the back of his throat as John increased the movement of his hips and pushed into Sherlock’s hand faster.

“How much have you wanted to come in my hand, John?” he breathed, straightening up enough for John to have a perfect view of what they were doing. Sherlock’s stomach and some of his torso was smeared in his own emission, which dripped down over his still twitching skin to paint Sherlock’s hips and thighs wetly. Some of it dripped down onto John and he groaned at the sight, thrusting almost madly and gripping the crease of Sherlock’s knees. 

When John began to quiver fiercely, Sherlock reached between his legs with his free hand and cupped John’s balls, massaging them until John rocked up so strongly he practically tipped Sherlock sideways, “Fuck Sherlock,” he growled, digging his fingers into Sherlock’s legs as he rutted with gathering speed and then convulsed in sudden climax. “O-oh! Oh fuh-fuck yes!”

“Yes,” Sherlock hissed needlessly in lust, stroking him through it proficiently and staring down as John’s penis spurted hard, spraying Sherlock’s arm and John’s stomach in thick bursts. 

The explosion of pleasure was so sharp and intense that it almost hurt, and John grimaced and moaned, arching his back with an uncontrollable shaking of his hips, soaking the bed sheets either side of his body as another few spurts feebly pulsed from him. John sagged a few moments later and panted, unable to open his eyes, and felt as Sherlock shifted above him, unhanding him, only to then press their slicked bodies together.

“Fuck…Sherlock,” John slurred gutturally, lifting one hand to rest between Sherlock’s shoulder blades. “That…feels disgusting…”

“I like it.”

“You would.”

Sherlock nosed his way to John’s neck, “We can shower in a moment or two.”

“We?” John asked, turning his head toward him limply.

“Or we could take a bath together,” Sherlock mused, trailing his lips to John’s shoulder. “Hm – Yes. The latter sounds interesting.”

“Interesting?—”

“Stop repeating words back to me,” Sherlock groused, rubbing their stomachs together with an obscene squelching noise as he adjusted his position.

“Ugh – Stop moving! I can feel it dribbling down my sides and— Oh God, I’m going to have to wash these sheets, aren’t I?” He asked, frowning when Sherlock made a sound of confirmation and then wiggled his hips, pushing their wet, oversensitive and softening penises together. “I might be rethinking this entire situation.”

“No you’re not.”

“You don’t know what I—”

Sherlock leaned up and arched his eyebrow at John when he finally opened his eyes to look at him, “You’re thinking about when we can do it again.”

“No,” John sighed. “Actually, I’m thinking about—”

Sherlock swooped down to kiss him and smirked slowly, “There you go.”

“…Git.”


	11. Misshapen Relationship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm going to be constantly apologising for the long wait...
> 
> Apologies for any spelling mistakes and whatnot. I'm very tired and it's taken me a while to write this chapter because of writer's block (as I keep going on about - It's horrid and my Muse just does not help me in any way!)

The following morning John found Sherlock in the kitchen on his microscope and, feeling somewhat overconfident and suddenly quite high on it too, he walked over, tipped Sherlock’s head back with one hand on Sherlock’s jaw, and kissed him on the mouth. Sherlock tensed and froze, but his lips were yielding, hot and soft almost instantly. John grinned, feeling giddy, and then moved to kiss his forehead, before strolling to fill the kettle and take down two mugs. Although he was still, annoyingly, nervous and edgy about what they had done and the future of their weird and rather twisted relationship, he felt good. John had not done anything intimate, mutually, with somebody for far too long, and he felt lighter and happier and more assertive than he had in months.

After the other day’s activities, when the buzz from their orgasms had faded, Sherlock and John had indeed shared the bathroom together, although John had refused the bath and instead insisted on a quick shower. It had brought back several memories of the first time that they had shared a shower, and in reaction John had blushed and awkwardly turned his back, while Sherlock smirked widely in amusement and did everything he could to rub up against John, passing each movement off as accidental. John pretended that he was annoyed by the actions but each slide of wet skin only ignited the desire for more, and near the end of the shower, John had been powerless to stop himself from teasing Sherlock to yet another orgasm, kissing and swallowing his echoing groans.

Sherlock made a low noise behind him, the sound a cross between a scoff and a hum of interest, “Well, aren’t you chipper today…”

“Hm – Tea?” John replied, still grinning as he glanced briefly over his shoulder and then brought out two plates. “And toast?—Oh. I’ve still not restocked the lemon and lime marmalade, have I? Do you want honey instead? I bought that.”

“Which kind?” Sherlock asked, voice closer.

John frowned and turned to be faced with Sherlock, whom had gotten up and wandered over to stand close to John’s back, “The…best kind?”

Sherlock arched his eyebrow, “If it’s Tesco honey it’s not the “best kind,” John,” he drawled, eyes flitting intensely over John’s face and then sliding away as he opened the cupboard to drag the jar out and read the label.

“Well excuse me, your Highness,” John sighed, glancing down at Sherlock’s free hand as it brushed his leg. “Does it really matter? Honey is honey – Anyway, it’s not from Tescos. I got it at the co-op. Its fairtrade honey.”

Sherlock scowled deeply at John, opened the honey jar, and dipped his fingers into it to taste, reading the label again with a furrow of his brow, “Mm. I suppose it’s not too bad.” 

John stared at him as he sucked his fingers clean, suddenly remembering how it had felt when Sherlock had sucked his own ejaculate from John’s hand, “Uh, good. Good,” he mumbled and then shook his head, turning back around to make their tea and fumble for several slices of bread. “Pass the butter, please?”

Putting the honey down, Sherlock then reached for the strawberry jam and the butter, placing both beside John’s elbow, “For future reference – although I’m sure I’ve told you this before – there are a range of different brands of honey. Not all of them are good. In fact, there is a tremendous amount of them that are—”

“No lecturing, not first thing in the morning,” John interrupted, inserting the bread into the toaster and glaring half-heartedly at Sherlock, unable to stop his eyes from dropping to Sherlock’s pyjama bottoms. He blinked at the obvious growing bulge there and slowly looked back up at Sherlock’s face to gauge his expression as he cleared his throat and rummaged for a butter knife, purposely pretending he had not seen it. 

“Ignore it for now,” Sherlock told him with a dismissive hand, wafting the scent of honey into John’s face. 

“I wasn’t going to do anything else,” John muttered with a flush, handing Sherlock his mug of tea and trying not to react to how Sherlock was watching him closely as he began buttering the toast, “So, um, what are you working on? With your microscope – Some sort of experiment?”

“Nothing important.”

John sighed, “…Right. Of course – If I come home to a fog of foul smelling smoke, I shall be extremely upset with you.”

Sherlock’s fingers were suddenly skimming up John’s arm, trailing irregular and idle patterns up to his shoulder, and then his nape, before carding through the short hair there. John’s heart stuttered, his skin tingling, and he clumsily smeared honey on a few slices of toast, cutting them up and piling it on a plate, before he shivered and turned to Sherlock, holding the toast up to him expectantly. Sherlock rubbed one of John’s ears between his fingers in consideration, stroking his index finger along John’s jaw, and then took the plate and sat down at the table with both his plate and mug, and smiled.

John licked his suddenly dry lips and made his own toast coated with jam, “So, uh, what’s your plan for today? – Other than whatever you’re doing with that microscope—That’s not anything to do with me is it? I get a feeling it is. – Sherlock, if you’re looking at my sperm under the bloody microscope—!”

“I shall be waiting for you to get back,” Sherlock replied between bites of toast, his fingers slicked with honey again. “Possibly hope for a homicide – Or a serial killer. I wouldn’t mind a serial killer. There’s been so few of them lately, it’s very disconcerting.”

John stifled his laugh and shook his head, “What a thing to say…”

“Not really had much kidnapping cases either – Nor any good robberies,” Sherlock continued in a muffled grumble. “It’s really quite disappointing.” 

Carrying his own mug and plate of toast, John turned and moved to the table to join Sherlock, “Oh yeah, terribly disappointing. Crime is on the decline, how dare it,” he said sarcastically, and paused when Sherlock hooked his foot around the chair John was about to sit down in and dragged it around to be beside him. John hesitated a moment with a small frown, but then lowered into it, ignoring the way their arms brushed as he settled. “Have you checked your emails?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied after a gulp of tea, his eyes flitting briefly to his laptop and then over at John as he pushed the last of his toast into his mouth, pushing it into his cheek to speak. “They were all asinine.”

“Asinine? – How so?” John asked in amusement, watching as Sherlock sucked on his fingertips in a very oddly suggestive manner and then picked up his mug with a slow curling of his long fingers. “Are you positive there is nothing that you can do at all? Just to have something to do for the day? You can’t just sit around waiting for me to get back, Sherlock – It’s not like it would be better with me here to watch you mope either. Especially not for me. I’ve seen enough of you moping to last a lifetime.”

Sherlock’s mouth twitched, “I’m not so bored as to delve into those pathetic emails from my website, John. Not yet – half of them are about adultery, and honestly, if they can’t figure out that their significant other is shagging their next-door neighbour or sister or best friend, then they deserve to be unhappy.”

“Sherlock!”

“What?” Sherlock groused with a shrug, and leaned a little closer with a deliberate shift of his expression, his gaze lowering temporarily to John’s lap. “Stay here.”

John stopped mid-chew and narrowed his eyes, “What?”

“Call in sick,” Sherlock replied, watching John eat and cradling his mug of tea with half a smile. “Stay home.”

“No,” John huffed, still eyeing Sherlock and straightening his spine at the look in his eyes, feeling another rush of tingles. “Why?”

“I want you to stay.”

“…Why?”

Sherlock lifted his brow in reply and then very gradually took a sip of tea before replying, “I want to test out this new arrangement between us, this verbal contract—”

“Not a contract.”

“Yes it is,” Sherlock countered and waited until John had finished his toast and tea before he reached out with one hand and dragged his fingernails along John’s scalp, leaning an inch or two closer to exhale down John’s throat.

“…What are you doing?” John whispered huskily when Sherlock cupped his chin and turned his head around toward Sherlock’s fervent face. “Oi, none of that. I’m not having a day off work just to…to…mess around with you!”

“Why not?” Sherlock sighed with a faint playful-like sulk, his eyes tracking down to John’s mouth as he next dragged his nails along a small patch of stubble John had missed when shaving. “How about I just perform fellatio on you then? I’m ravenous for you.”

“Sherlock!” John coughed with a short and sudden laugh, turning his head away. “Jesus Christ!—No! Look, just because we have this…thing now, doesn’t mean you can do all this all the time! – And I thought you weren’t like that, anyway? You said you weren’t that sexual and won’t want it constantly.”

“You kissed me though,” Sherlock replied, pushing up against John’s side warmly and resting his chin on John’s shoulder as his hand nimbly drifted up John’s thigh. “And I thought you were like that? You said that you hated waiting? – You’d not refuse me if I were another one of your boring girlfriends.”

John’s leg twitched as he shifted position and cleared his throat, “I would if I needed to go to work – I haven’t got time to indulge myself, Sherlock,” he said, checking his watch and tugging on his collar as a flush of arousal burned through him with each mischievous flutter of Sherlock’s fingers on the seam of his trousers. John swallowed with a sharp breath when Sherlock scratched his fingertips down the inside of his thigh, and pulled his hips back with another vague glare in Sherlock’s direction.

“Of course you do, John,” Sherlock sighed and cheekily blew on John’s ear before he tilted his chin down and pushed his mouth into John’s arm, exhaling and then inhaling through the fabric of his shirt. “You smell nice. Why do you have to smell so good?” 

Sherlock’s hand cupped abruptly between his legs with a gentle pressure, pushing up against his half-hard penis and John jerked, grabbing Sherlock’s forearm and scowling feebly, “Sherlock…”

“You’ve been late to work before,” Sherlock said with a loose shrug, and reached for his mug with his free hand to take another sip. He began grinding his palm into John’s crotch and turned perceptively to the kitchen door just as Mrs Hudson opened it, holding their post from yesterday with a look of annoyance. “Thank you Mrs Hudson.” He intoned in a murmur.

John spluttered and tried to push Sherlock away as subtly as he could, but his hand remained in place, rubbing John through his trousers, “Sherlock,” John growled under his breath, forcing a smile on his face when Mrs Hudson turned to him with concern at his tone. “Thanks Mrs H, if you could just p-put it in the…in the living room, that would be fucking grand—Sorry! Sorry…I…stubbed my toe…”

Mrs Hudson blinked at him and frowned, but waved a hand limply at them flippantly when Sherlock arched his eyebrow at her with impatience, “How many times do I have to do this for you both? I really wish you’d fetch your own post every now and again. Coming up and down these stairs is not good for my hip,” she complained lightly, the words reused and rehearsed and common.

John nodded tersely and waited for her to turn her back before punching Sherlock in his arm hard, grinning when Sherlock winced and pulled it back with a hiss, flexing his hand. His bright and sharp eyes, full of sudden wicked mischievousness, locked onto John’s face slowly with another half-quirk of his lips and the look shot a spiralling, forceful wriggle of excitement throughout his pelvis and a flash of adrenaline up his spine. John suddenly lurched to his feet as Sherlock hit out at him with a smirk in return, and scrambled back against the sink and then the fridge as Sherlock followed him to thump him childishly in the bicep in good-humoured revenge. The pain shuddered up John’s arm and he gasped with a quiet laugh, jabbing his fingers into Sherlock’s stomach in retaliation, only realising how ridiculous they looked when he caught sight of Mrs Hudson grinning over at them with an impish expression, her hands cradled in front of her chest and her eyes sparkling. Sherlock followed his gaze and straightened, prodding John in his side discreetly as he swept his other arm toward the kitchen door.

“Thank you Mrs Hudson,” he said rudely. “You may go now.”

Instead of leaving, she drifted closer and pointed at them both, lifting her eyebrows hopefully, “Are you two?—”

“No,” Sherlock and John said at the same moment, glancing at each other before John cleared his throat and smiled. “No. We’re not – It’s nothing like that. We…I…um, I need to head to work actually, so…I’ll see you both later.”

Sherlock didn’t step back to let John out and looked down his nose at him, “No.”

“Uh, yeah,” John replied, pushing on Sherlock’s chest, his arm still throbbing in a way that only made him hornier. “Sherlock. Move. Sherlock – Sherlock for goodness sake I have to get to work.”

“No,” Sherlock mumbled with a flicker of a smile, pushing against John and then pointing to the kitchen door rigidly. “Mrs Hudson – Out!”

John sighed and nodded at Mrs Hudson’s questioning and frustrated face, watching her leave and then looking up into Sherlock’s eyes, “Listen, Sherlock, quit playing about now—”

Ducking down, Sherlock cut him off with a kiss and cupped John’s face, stroking his fingers over his cheeks and then around to cradle the back of his head, deepening the kiss a little with a tilt of his jaw. When he pulled back, he mashed his mouth into John’s forehead and then stepped back, sitting down at the kitchen table again innocently and finishing the rest of his tea. His body was languid and slumped, every part of him displaying a knowing sort of arrogance that sent John’s blood bubbling. Everything about Sherlock was calm and collected, everything but for the straining bulge at his crotch.

“…Right,” John breathed, staring at Sherlock and then slowly wandering around the table, absentmindedly touching his tingling lips. “If…if that was your imitation of the kiss that I gave to you, then that was all wrong. I…did not kiss you like that – And if it was a sort of “goodbye have a nice day at work” kiss then it certainly was not one of those.”

“Wasn’t meant to be,” Sherlock replied, leaning back in his chair and diving one hand through his hair. “Was more like a “stay here instead of going to have a boring day at work” kiss.”

“I can’t stay,” John told him, leaning on the table to stabilises himself, embarrassingly aware of the strained front of his trousers with a nervous cringe. “Sherlock, you already drag me from work at all hours of the bloody day—”

“I love you,” Sherlock mumbled into his hand as he rubbed his mouth, stretching his feet under the table to poke at John on the other side with his toes. He tilted his head at John’s shocked expression, dropped his hand meekly to his lap, and then leaned forward, resting on his elbows. “That should be our codephrase, I think.”

John frowned slowly, stunned and muddled, “I’m sorry, our what now?”

“But when I say it, you have to stop or drop whatever you’re doing, and—”

“I already do that without some bloody “codephrase”!—Sherlock, I told you before and I’ll tell you again, I choose to do what I do for and to you, you cannot make me, and definitely not with those three little words,” John told him seriously, smoothing down his tie with a firm nod at Sherlock’s arched disbelieving eyebrows. “You always try and find little ways to persuade me and control the situation, don’t you? You notice that certain things you do or say are things that I like and then you continue to use them for your own gain. Well, it failed. So…ha! – I’m going to work.”

Sherlock stood up and trailed after John as he collected his coat and slipped on his shoes. “Didn’t you say that you became impatient and disappointed when you had to wait for weeks at a time for me to want or need you? Well, you needn’t wait, because I want you now – I love—”

John shot a half-hearted glare over at him, “Shut up…”

“You wanted me to say it before…” Sherlock said in his ear, dropping his forehead against John’s back as he sighed in annoyance. “Let me at least just taste you a little before you go—”

John felt a spark of sharp lust at his words and glanced momentarily at his watch, “I…Sherlock, for God’s sake! – You know, that kiss I gave you wasn’t meant to lead to anything! It was…was just a…a spur-of-the-moment…thing…”

Sherlock’s fingers crawled around John’s waist and began undoing his belt and trousers, “Hm – This could be the same,” he murmured, his scent invading John’s senses rapidly. “Please?”

“There you go again,” John muttered, waving a hand and turning to glance back at Sherlock. “You can’t just say “please” or “thank you” or…that…other one…and expect me to just give in, Sherlock. It won’t happen. You can’t…”

Sherlock moved around to stand before John and quirked his mouth, slipping to his knees as his fingers tugged open John’s underwear, “I’ll be quick,” he whispered, kissing the skin of John’s stomach as he nudged his shirt aside with his nose, licking at the waistband of John’s underwear with a moaning breath. “Mm. I can’t wait for you to get around to sucking my—”

John stumbled back into the nearest wall with a curse and shuddered, glowering at Sherlock as he smirked up at him and shuffled close again, pushing his face into John’s crotch. Sherlock sucked at the shape of John’s cock through the fabric of his underwear and then freed him from it, breathing against the wet head before he guided it into his open mouth and peeked up at John with an eager and hungry intent that made his erection visibly twitch between Sherlock’s stretched lips.

“Jesus,” John hissed through his teeth, looking away for only a moment, “I…didn’t exactly agree to this…”

Sherlock pulled off slowly, wetly, and puckered his lips in a kiss that left a few strings of salvia and pre-ejaculate dangling between them, “Could have stopped me – Could still stop me. If you want to, that is,” he rumbled and smoothed his hands up and down John’s sides, eyes tracking from John’s heaving torso, to his erection and then up to his face. “Do you want to?”

John made a pained and unsure sound in the back of his throat, and rubbed his face, “…Not really. Not anymore. Not after…that – But I’m going to be so late…”

“Like I said,” Sherlock grinned, rubbing his moving mouth down the side of John’s shaft with a flare of his nostrils and a further dilation of his pupils, “I’ll be quick.”

John clenched his teeth, shifted his stance, and then finally nodded, “Fine – Yeah,” he said with a quiver to his voice. “Obviously I want you to and…you…want to…and I…I’m…”

“Erect.”

“Yes. That,” John mumbled with half his mouth twitching as he reached down to comb the fingers of both his hands through Sherlock’s hair, cradling the back of his head. 

Sherlock nuzzled into the dark blonde curls at John’s crotch with a sigh of excitement, making John gush with embarrassment, “I want you to stay,” he murmured throatily. “Stay and unravel me inch by inch with your coarse and capable and compassionate fingers – Just the thought of your hands on me makes me so—”

“God, stop,” John moaned with a rough laugh, grinding his fingertips down the back of Sherlock’s neck and over his shoulders, “Don’t start using alliteration like that…”

“Stay here. Touch me – I need you,” Sherlock replied, smearing his plump and wet mouth up to John’s navel and then suddenly getting back to his feet to press the length of his body into John’s, catching his mouth in a desperate and passionate kiss.

John thumped into the wall at his back again and gripped Sherlock’s arms, tasting himself on Sherlock’s wicked and curling tongue as he pulled him closer and groaned shakily. Sherlock shivered and began to thrust up against John in eager and impatient surges, rubbing the soft material of his pyjama bottoms and the tense muscles of his thigh beneath them, against John’s naked cock. Each movement shot hot lust and pleasure up John’s spine and throughout his pelvis, and he distantly thought about giving in to Sherlock and staying, touching him all over like he had all but begged John to do. 

“Sherlock…” John mumbled with a twitch of his hips and an overly thick inhale, knocking his head back when Sherlock rubbed his lips over his cheek to breathe into his ear and hairline. “This…isn’t quick…”

Sherlock huffed and turned to kiss John on the chin, “I need you here,” he mumbled, happy when John’s hands fell to his hips, and then pushed a little harder against John with a curling of his fingers around his shirt collar. “…You do more good with me – I don’t know why you waste your time “doctoring” pathetic, idiotic people with runny noses and boils—”

“Enough of that. Not everything I do revolves around you,” John frowned in annoyance, pushing Sherlock back a step but allowing Sherlock to grip hold of his trouser pockets tightly, “I’m going to work, Sherlock, whether you like it or not.”

Sherlock eyed him closely for thirty silent seconds and then inclined his head, slipped back to his knees, and kissed his way along John’s erection to take him back into his mouth. He teased John with a slow and tantalising rhythm, increasing the suction and pace of his ministrations only to slow them back down again whenever John felt his orgasm looming. Sherlock glanced up at John when he gripped two handfuls of his hair again and John glared with a shaky and quiet moan, tipping his hips forward as Sherlock purred eagerly.

Sherlock’s gaze was dark; his face pink with arousal, and John felt a flare in his pelvis and his chest simultaneously. The sight of Sherlock in such an aroused state was already enormously familiar, but the way he enthusiastically took John’s cock was not, and John gaped and panted and pushed his fingers over Sherlock’s scalp, along his cheeks, and down his neck. Sherlock let John’s wet and heavily engorged shaft slip from his mouth and licked, then kissed, John’s frenulum, mouthing at his foreskin. 

“Up,” John whispered croakily after another minute of teasing, and tugged and manhandled Sherlock off his penis clumsily with an arousing wet sound, hauling him back to his feet. “Get up.”

Sherlock frowned; looking perplexed and then flustered, and swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of a trembling hand, “All right. No more messing about. I’m s—”

John dragged him back to the kitchen thoughtlessly, gave the table a quick interested glance, but then shook his head and lugged Sherlock through to his bedroom, shoving him back down on the bed. Sherlock bounced awkwardly where he’d been dumped and only had a second to blink and try and hurriedly undress before John leaned down over him, pushing between his legs, and kissed him. Sherlock exhaled shakily through his nose and returned the kiss only for John to end it the instant he did by pulling away; John then grabbed the waistband of Sherlock’s pyjama bottoms and yanked them down to mid-thigh, exposing Sherlock’s crotch and hips. John then pushed up Sherlock’s top, baring his stomach and chest, and held Sherlock down with one hand on his sternum with an impish expression.

“…What are you doing?” Sherlock asked him, confused.

John’s hesitated, but then flashed Sherlock an insecure grin and took himself in hand, “Being quick.”

The crease between Sherlock’s brows deepened and he tried to sit up, “Now, that’s not fair, and if you think you are going to cover me in—”

“I thought you liked it?” John asked with a cocked head, and ignored the small flicker of embarrassment at having Sherlock stare down at the way John began stroking himself. John stifled a low sound at the wideness of Sherlock’s pupils and the trembling of his stomach and hands, and leaned down to push their cheeks together. 

Sherlock sighed and turned to rub his mouth down John’s jaw, “Why can’t you just stay here? ”

“…Why do you want me here so much today?”

“I just do.”

“There has to be a reason.”

“Does there,” Sherlock mumbled, and looked at him with a quivering gasp when John took them both in hand, pressing their erections together with a zealous squeeze. The long fingers of Sherlock’s right hand delved into John’s hair as he shifted below him in a slow squirm. “Will you…kiss me every morning?”

John paused and looked at Sherlock, “I…I don’t know—Do you want me to? You like it?” he asked with a growing smile and a surprised lift of his brow. Sherlock’s own smile was twisted and compressed, but he shrugged nonchalantly and rolled his hips up, pushing his erection up along John’s and through the clasp of his fingers.

“Perhaps not every morning,” he mumbled in mock thought. “Not sure I will always be in the right mood to put up with your whiskers.”

John rubbed the fingers of his free hand against Sherlock’s upper lip, scraping at the small stubble there pointedly, “What about before I go work?”

“No,” Sherlock grumbled, rocking nimbly up against John as John stroked them together with a quickening pace. Sherlock groaned and arched his head back, clawing down to the nape of John’s neck, pushing his hand roughly down the back of his shirt collar to scratch at the hot skin of his back. “Too sentimental and ordinary.”

“Oh?” John grunted, dropping his forehead against Sherlock’s collarbone and rutting into his own hand. “Right then. Don’t want to be…to be ordinary.”

As they moved and thrust together, building up speed and sweating, John turned his head, caught sight of Sherlock’s right nipple and immediately moved over to breathe hotly against it and then take it into his mouth. Sherlock’s back bowed with his loud exclamation and a shudder in response, and he scrabbled at John’s back and shoulder, his heart thundering so hard and fast that John was sure he could feel it against his lips. Pulling back, John blinked dazedly down at Sherlock’s heaving chest, and taking his hand from around their cocks, he gripped Sherlock’s waist tightly in both hands and ran the tip of his tongue from the top of his navel to his suprasternal notch. As he dipped down to suck at the junction between Sherlock’s neck and shoulder, John fumbled into his trouser pocket for his phone and moved up on his elbows to thumb a quick message to Sarah at the clinic, accepting an ecstatic and messy kiss from Sherlock as he did.

When it was sent John threw his phone aside, swiftly tugged off his tie, and began unbuttoning his shirt, much to Sherlock’s delight, “This is also a one time thing – I won’t constantly be late for work, or have days off from work, just to give in and have wild moments of…passion with you,” John told him in a low and husky tone, tasting the unfurling grin that spread out over Sherlock’s face. “This honeymoon stage won’t last, you know…”

Sherlock dragged John’s shirt from where it had been neatly tucked into his trousers and kissed a hot path of butterfly kisses down his neck, “This what?”

“You know…this bit.”

“What bit?”

“This! The…the ecstasy and the…the…”

Sherlock wrestled his own top off and moved to rub up against John, “Take your trousers off,” he moaned into John’s bared chest, pushing the open shirt to the floor. “When you let me fuck you, I want you on top of me—” 

“Stop – Who says that will even happen,” John panted with a shiver down his spine, trying to fight Sherlock’s impatient fingers as they pushed his trousers and underwear to his ankles. 

“I could very much ejaculate soon,” Sherlock said in a groan overwhelmed with desire, suddenly biting high up on John’s neck and wrapping his arms around his shoulders, pulling him down. His right hand smoothed down John’s spine to his backside and brazenly cupped him, fingers inching their way between John’s buttocks. “It won’t take much…not with you smelling and looking as delightful as you do—I cannot wait to do more…I want so much, John, so much.”

John tensed and tried to move up, grabbing Sherlock’s forearm with an embarrassed expression and a glare, “Oi!”

“Just let me touch…” Sherlock breathed, mouth and nose squashed excitedly into John’s cheek and jaw. “Please?”

“…No. No, Sherlock I’m not up for that…”

“Please?”

“No!” John grimaced in humiliation but the tingles and sweeps of arousal with each teasing stroke of Sherlock’s fingertip along his tailbone made his cock throb where it was crushed into Sherlock’s hip.

Sherlock rolled up into him and peppered chaotic kisses up the side of his face, rubbing his hand in soothing circles across John’s lower back, “You can touch me too.” He rumbled, and then let John go to squirm back onto the bed and reach for his bedside drawer, taking out a bottle of lube. “No penetration. Just touching. It’s nothing you haven’t done yourself.”

“…What?” John gaped, moving to sit on the edge of the bed and then standing up at the sight of the lube. 

“You’ve touched your own—”

“No.”

“Yes.”

John glowered, “No I haven’t! I think I’d remember if I touched my own arsehole during masturbation.”

Sherlock frowned at him and then tilted his head, “Really?”

“Are you saying you have?” John countered, folding his arms and feeling overly self-conscious and nervous. 

Shrugging, Sherlock reached out for him, frowning when John moved back away from his touch, “…Yes. But, it’s only been recently. I never wanted to do anything sexual until we started—”

““We?” There is no “we,” Sherlock. You started this between us. You needed me first, and then you… acquired a taste for me because – I don’t know – because you experienced a better and more intense orgasm by my hand, whilst you were drugged, I might add—God. This is all based on stupidity, isn’t it? What is this? What are we? I…” As John trailed off into silence, breathing heavily and flexing his hands, Sherlock watched him and then shuffled off the bed to push his body against him, following whenever John turned away. 

With his erection prodding wetly into John’s stomach, Sherlock took John’s left hand, smeared lube onto his fingers, and then guided them down before kissing John lightly on the mouth. John exhaled through his nose and looked at Sherlock up close, leaving his hand and fingers lax until Sherlock dropped his head onto his shoulder and curled his arms around John tightly. Rolling his eyes at the submissive and apologetic display, John pushed a kiss to Sherlock’s neck and rocked against him, slowly pushing his slicked fingers to Sherlock’s perineum instead of where he intended for John to go. 

“Say it,” John whispered as Sherlock jerked and groaned, painting the skin of John’s stomach with a sudden thick ooze of pre-ejaculate. John moved them back over to the bed and followed Sherlock down, moving his hand between Sherlock’s shaking legs. “Sherlock…”

Sherlock’s hips trembled as John rubbed, but he looked at John with a sharpness to his gaze that made John’s heart stutter, “Shouldn’t you ask yourself why you like hearing me say that—?”

“Say it.”

With a shaky sigh, Sherlock angled for a kiss first and then pushed one of his hands over his face, partly muffling his already muttered words, “I love you…”

“Again.”

“Really now—”

“Again, Sherlock.”

Sherlock pressed his hand harder over his face, across his nose and eyes, and stifled a moan as John increased his stroking only to take them both in hand again, “I…I love you.”

“You always hide some part of your face,” John remarked, pushing down against Sherlock and pulling his hand away to pin it above his head. “Say it again, and look at me.”

Scowling briefly at John’s smug grin, Sherlock looked away from him and arched his back, thrusting into John’s grip with a throaty moan, “No—”

“Do you want to orgasm?” John asked him as he quickened the pace of his hand and shifted further over Sherlock, eyeing the way Sherlock made room for him by spreading and bending his legs flexibly. “Say it again, and I’ll let you.”

“Is this punishment for—”

“Say it.”

Sherlock’s mouth pinched tightly in reply and then looked up at John with blown pupils and reddened cheeks, “…I love you,” he rumbled deeply, twitching with a loud groan in the next second when John mashed his mouth into the corner of Sherlock’s jaw and stroked them both harder and faster, breathing jaggedly into Sherlock’s skin as his own orgasm bloomed. “Oh…yes…”

Sherlock’s sweat was somehow a mixture of musky, spicy and sweet, and John moaned lowly and leaned back to stare down at his own hand working over the two of them, smearing and rubbing their gleaming, flushed glans together. What they were doing was somehow still very much explicit and extremely tantalisingly to him, and each slide of hard, slicked skin against his palm only made the heady fog of arousal thicker and his hand move quicker.

“Mm – John…you—”

“Shush. Don’t speak,” John grunted, working his hips harder with a rough breath and shoving the fingers of his right hand up Sherlock’s strained throat, cupping his jaw. 

Sherlock whined low and bucked erratically up against him, “Why not? You like it…”

“Quiet…”

Wheezing, with his fringe plastered to his temples, Sherlock hooked his legs around John’s waist and gasped, “J-John…I…I’m going to—”

“I know,” John groaned, shivering and grinding down against him eagerly as Sherlock’s hands followed the flexing muscles down John’s back, and gripped his backside. 

The touch made him stutter in alarm but Sherlock rolled his pelvis to distract him and shook his head, dipping his chin to push his mouth into John’s fingers in a sloppy kiss and a jagged moan. The scene spurred John a little harder and Sherlock clenched his eyes shut, scrunching his eyebrows together in heightening pleasure with a deep and loud, vibrating purr. The air in the bedroom was already stifling and thick with the scent of sex, clogging and exciting, and the more he rocked and stroked, the hotter and denser it became. John pushed back Sherlock’s hair on one sharp thrust and then held his head back, tugging a handful of curls when Sherlock gasped wetly.

John watched Sherlock’s mouth open further on a soft grunt and then turned his eyes downward. The convulsive way in which Sherlock’s stomach quivered was hypnotising and appealing, and John stared with glazing eyes as they rutted and rocked together, shuddering bodily when Sherlock entwined his right hand with John’s left, increasing the tight, hot clasp they both thrust into.

“Fuck, Sherlock.” Pulling him up from the bed, John sucked a mark into Sherlock’s throat madly, feeling the clawing fingers of his orgasm suddenly advance with rapid speed. “Y-yeah…God…”

By the time Sherlock was shaking in unexpected climax, John’s vision throbbed and then whitened in his own, and he felt the scorching splashes of Sherlock’s ejaculate over his working hand a mere second before his own cock pulsed in a series of rough bursts that coated Sherlock’s torso. John slumped down against Sherlock with a shaky sigh, panting against his shoulder and neck, and then lifted his head to receive Sherlock’s needy but possessive kiss, ignorant of his flashing and buzzing phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback fuels me!
> 
> Please check my [Tumblr](http://gem-gem-bites.tumblr.com/) for updates! - Please be aware that I may post questions relating to stories to ask for your lovely input.


	12. Changing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, so sorry for the wait. I blame my Broadband and the huge amount of stress I'm under...bloody stress *shakes fist at it*

Despite Sherlock’s almost constant need for John to stay and pay very special attention to him, John succeeded in going to work for the next several weeks. The change in routine and sexual appetite was, John realised, to do with how he chose to leave the flat every morning. The heated and eager kiss between them before he went, continually consumed John’s body in blistering liquid heat that barely cooled by the time he got home to the jittery and impatient arms of Sherlock, who took him to bed without seeming to bore of their predictable rut. 

John was both exhausted and oddly energised by their activities and abnormal relationship, and he wondered, as he caught his breath on a Wednesday night with his shoulder pushed up against Sherlock’s, if what they were doing was weirder than what they had been doing to start off with. They weren’t together, not really, not romantically, but the way they spoke and acted and slept together, seemed to say otherwise. It pulled at his heart, pulled him apart, dividing him down the middle. On one side he enjoyed the sexual contact more than he could express, and was perfectly happy to keep it as such without thinking ahead, but on the other side he was constantly worrying about the state of their friendship and their future together as roommates, partners and best friends. Perhaps John’s mind was just playing tricks, but he could swear he saw something growing between them, could even feel it in the air seconds before they grabbed or touched one another. People had always thought they were together, even when they actually hadn’t been like that in any way, maybe they saw something between them that had been dormant and sleeping until the tension between them had finally snapped?

John looked over at the profile of Sherlock’s face and stared at the pretty flush on his cheeks and the faint curve of bliss to his mouth. Once Sherlock had a case or if Sherlock actually did become bored of it all and decided it was over, could John really let it all go, could he forget the sight beside him so easily? His heart clenched and stuttered oddly at the thought and he swallowed, licking his lips nervously as he tried to make sense of it all. He knew that what they had was strange and he knew that he cared a great deal for Sherlock, as well as finding him sexually and physically pleasing apparently; but he wasn’t sure if there was anything else there. The sense of loss or cringing disappointment that he would feel if Sherlock stopped their actions could be simply down to nothing more than self-interest and insatiability, and nothing more. John recalled when such a thing happened between past girlfriends with a compression of his mouth, he had only been after their attention and affections and nothing more, was this thing with Sherlock the same situation again?

What about Sherlock blurting out that he loved John? John knew that Sherlock loved him, as he loved Sherlock in return, but was it a different kind of love now? Why did John continue to ask and then demand for Sherlock to say the three words again and again?

Sherlock sat up with a stretch and a yawn, rubbing their mixed essence into his twitching stomach idly as he did so, and glanced over at John, “What?” he rumbled, rolling his eyes at John’s quick, defensive frown. “You’re like an open book, John.”

“No I’m not,” John argued, sitting up to give in to the sudden impulse to kiss and breathe against Sherlock’s arm, inhaling the scent of sex and Sherlock’s sweat with an ache in his chest. 

“You really are,” Sherlock replied and smiled with a wonky quirk to his mouth, turning to duck down and catch John’s lips in a chaste and lazy kiss. He inhaled slowly when their noses bumped and pushed another kiss to John’s cheek and temple. “You might as well tell me. I’m either going to correctly deduce it…or I can make a game of it and just pester you until you tell me – I must say, I’m leaning toward the latter this time. Pestering you is such a fond pastime.”

“Pastime? It’s not as if you’ve stopped pestering me. You still pester me. You’re pestering me right now,” John huffed and shrugged loosely at the light meaningful nudge of Sherlock’s elbow. John futilely gestured between them at Sherlock’s pointed expression and took a breath before speaking in a mumble, “We’ve been…intimate a lot. Daily in fact.”

Sherlock nodded and waited for more, then wrinkled his nose in confusion and rotated his wrist with an elegant curl of his fingers, wanting more, “Yes, and?”

“Nothing. I just…I just don’t know how to take it all—I know, I know. You don’t have to pull that bloody face at me, Sherlock, but really, this is just…I try to make sense of what we do, what we…are, all the time, but I can’t. I’m not entirely sure what this is, or what you want in the long run or…or even what I want! – And, you know, there will come a time when you’ll probably get bored of this, right? It’s bound to get tedious, this thing between us, especially if we’re doing it as regularly as we are. I told you before that…that it could be a way to get it all out of your system, a way for you to experience what you obviously didn’t at a younger age, and once you’ve done that…well, you’ll move on won’t you? And that’s…fine. Absolutely. Just…just fine,” John muttered and rubbed the drying spots of ejaculate on his own stomach, grimacing in disgust when it pulled at the hair near his navel. “That will happen, won’t it? You getting bored?”

“…Yes. Possibly,” Sherlock agreed and rolled his eyes again at John’s sudden and sharp look. “What? Did you expect me to lie to you? You’re right. It’s bound to get somewhat monotonous. We’re doing the same thing, near about, everyday – And it was you who said about “this honeymoon stage” not lasting.”

John glared down at his bare knees, not knowing what he expected to hear or, more importantly, what he wanted to hear, and shuffled around to swing his legs over the side of the bed to get away, “Right. Yeah.”

“But it’ll be both of us, not just me,” Sherlock pointed out, looking annoyed when John glanced back at him in question, “you always single me out. Whose to say you won’t get bored first? You’re used to women. Used to vaginas and breasts and all the other wobbly bits that come with them.”

John snorted on a bubble of laughter and turned to reach for Sherlock’s cheek on an instinctual need to touch, stroking Sherlock’s cheekbone and then the arch of his eyebrow, “Just…promise me that you won’t just randomly start ignoring me or…something, like before? At least let me know that this…thing is over, yeah?”

“I can’t promise that,” Sherlock sighed, seeming guilty for saying so but forcing a tight smile in John’s direction in half an apology, “just like you can’t promise me that you’ll always be free to do this with. You’ll find a woman at some point and that will be that. This will end abruptly, and you’ll go off and have your happy, tedious family.”

“How do you know?” John snapped curtly, stroking his fingers around Sherlock’s head and then down the sweaty nape of his neck, playing with the curls there and then sweeping his whole hand down Sherlock’s spine to rest it above his bottom. “What if I don’t want a woman now? What if I don’t want this…thing to end? Wh-what if I…I…”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and shifted around in interest, “What if you, what?”

“So many things have changed, Sherlock,” John sighed quietly, only able to look into Sherlock’s searching eyes briefly before he had to glance away and stare at the length of Sherlock’s bare legs and toes instead. “Changed for the both of us. You…you weren’t interested in anything like this before Sally and that…stupid incident. But it happened, you experienced what you did, and it was suddenly like you became somewhat addicted to it and—”

“Honestly, John,” Sherlock said brusquely and slipped suddenly off the bed, walking into the bathroom with John hot on his heels. 

“What? Deny it then,” John challenged, grabbing Sherlock’s pale and warm bicep in his hand, distantly revealing in the sensation of Sherlock’s skin under his fingers with a leap of his heart. “Go on! – Explain what else it was. Explain how you went from some celibate and aloof man to a raging and eager teenager in one bloody day! Think about everything you’ve said and done to try and coax me into giving you, you know, giving you release!—And you knew it was completely stupid. You knew. You admitted it, don’t you remember? You knew it was stupid but you did it anyway because you were addicted to the feelings that I…I gave you…”

Sherlock pulled his arm away and glowered, looking at their reflections in the bathroom mirror silently as he dampened a towel and cleaned his stomach with it, throwing it at John after he was done, “I can’t rightly explain what happened to me,” he murmured as he turned to face John and softened his expression with some effort, “and neither can you. You can’t read me, you don’t always understand me, and that’s fine, that’s what makes things worth it, what makes things interesting. – I can’t always understand you either. Sometimes you…you surprise me. You do or say something that is completely unforeseen by me, do you realise how much that interests and…excites me? How rare that is? How precious? I greatly relish and like that weird and illogical and unknown things happen with us. It makes life with you tolerable and…better than anything else.”

John blinked with a hard swallow and clutched the damp towel to his torso, “…Tolerable?” he repeated with a flickering grin that Sherlock returned.

“Very.” Sherlock replied with a huff of a laugh. “Stop trying to make sense of this, John. Don’t you think I’ve tried that already? Just like everything else about us, this is just as mysterious—I mean, for the first few weeks or so of us being introduced, I was trying to work out why you were still living with me, why you seemed to be…friends with me, and why you put up with everything that so many others didn’t. I don’t make friends easily. I don’t have many, if any, and yet…there you were…here you are…”

“But…but the way we’re…going,” John muttered, rubbing the edge of his jaw and then gesturing around aimlessly, “aren’t you…a little overwhelmed or, I don’t know, scared about what could happen with us, with this?” 

Sherlock frowned as if he didn’t understand, but the way his Adam’s apple bobbed made John suspicious, “No. I don’t think—”

“Say it,” John interrupted and lifted his eyebrows significantly, stepping closer to Sherlock to press his index finger into the middle of Sherlock’s chest, discreetly feeling for his pulse and giving in to the absolute need to touch Sherlock at the same time. “Go on.”

Sherlock flitted his eyes over John and then scoffed softly, turning up his mouth in an awkward grin, “John, those words don’t mean what you think they mean.”

“No?” John whispered, and forced himself to look into Sherlock’s face, feeling ridiculous standing in the bathroom, nude and covered in ejaculate while he tried to make his friend say that he loved him.

“You said before that you weren’t in love with me,” Sherlock said to him, voice vibrating under John’s touch, “that you were just addicted to me—”

“Yeah but—Look, you can’t bring in my mindless ramblings, Sherlock. I said a lot of things, okay? A lot of which I contradicted or just waved away seconds later, because I honestly don’t know what I felt then or…what I feel now, but I…I obviously feel something!”

“—I also told you that I wasn’t in love with you either, that it’s just lust and…this thing is little more than a chore,” Sherlock continued, shifting his stance and shrugging loosely, “that hasn’t changed – You’re my friend and I…”

“Love me,” John added for him when it looked like Sherlock was having trouble saying it outside of their sexual acts.

Sherlock nodded with a frustrated look, “Yes, but it’s not romantic. I find you very sexually, physically and mentally pleasing, and I’d be lost without you, but I am not in love with you, John.”

John inclined his head with a deep frown, all the more confused, and stepped back a bit, clearing his throat, “Right…”

“Indeed,” Sherlock said with a quick smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “so there is nothing to be frightened of John. I won’t come running after you, lovesick and crying, because you’ve found some tiresome woman—”

“Or man…”

“No.”

John glared at him half-heartedly, “Sherlock, how many more times – I enjoy doing stuff with you. You are a man. Therefore, I obviously like doing things with men—I might find some tiresome man to settle down with instead of a woman. You can’t know what will happen in the future, or what will happen when we finish this… “chore”…”

“You’re not gay, John,” Sherlock told him with an egotistical look that made John’s blood boil, “you don’t like men you just like—”

“You are a man, Sherlock!” John exclaimed in exasperation, throwing one hand up, and then gesturing to Sherlock’s nudity a second later. “If I enjoy that. If I like, and even look forward to getting to touch and press up against all of…that, then it stands to reason that I’ll likely enjoy it with another masculine body – I’m obviously bisexual. I am. And that… it’s fine. I sort of wish I’d known earlier, but it’s fine.”

“Other men aren’t me!”

John blinked at the outburst and scoffed, adjusting his weight, “Yes, I know that Sherlock, thank you for that big insight.”

“You like me and my “masculine body,” but that doesn’t mean you’ll like any other ones.”

“You’re being nonsensical,” John argued with a short laugh, wiping at his body briskly and throwing the towel into the laundry basket, “that makes no sense, whatsoever, Sherlock. That’s the same as saying that if I like one woman and her body, then I’ll just like her and no one else. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll like every other woman’s body as well, but I do and have liked quite a lot of them. –All bodies are different, yes, I’ll give you that, but if I enjoy a female body, I will enjoy a vast variety of them! Not just one! And I have done, by the way. Different women with different, glorious bodies!”

“I forbid you from seeking out any other men,” Sherlock suddenly shouted, face flushed red and eyes gleaming with some unknown emotion. “Have any woman you want, but you will not have any man you want, do you hear me?”

John frowned at him deeply, “…Do I hear you? Do you hear yourself? – You’re being irrational! You can’t fucking forbid me from seeing anyone! Who do you think you are? You don’t own me!” 

“Yes I do,” Sherlock retorted in a vicious sneer that even caught him by surprise.

John lifted his brow in disbelief, waited for a few moments, and then shook his head, “You know what? Fine. We’re done. This little “chore,” this illogical bullshit between us, ends now,” he told Sherlock sternly, feeling his heart jumping and then clenching erratically with emotion as he turned away, “Fuck you.”

Sherlock grabbed his arm tightly, “No.”

“Let go, Sherlock.”

“No,” Sherlock said curtly, looking wild and hysterical, “You can’t end it. You can’t keep ending it and taking it away. You’ll only come crawling back—”

“Let me go otherwise I’ll punch you in the face,” John growled, glowering and lowering his gaze to give the bathroom floor an angry look.

“You need it as much as I do. You won’t give it up. You never do. You always give in and come back to me,” Sherlock told him, his fingers digging in tighter and tighter with each and every word. He was shaking all over, and his breathing was irregular, making his speech jumpy and emotionally laden.

John looked up at him angrily but froze at the twisted, emotional expression on Sherlock’s face, noticing the knowing sheen to his eyes, “…Explain it to me,” John breathed, tilting his head when Sherlock blinked rapidly and frowned, “Why can I go off with a woman but not a man? Why? Why, Sherlock?—Are you sure you aren’t overwhelmed or scared? Are you sure you don’t…feel things for me?”

“You’re my friend, I told you that,” Sherlock said, voice thick and wet despite his best efforts, “there is nothing else—”

“Obviously there is if you’ll go to such lengths, if you’ll fucking forbid me from doing something,” John disputed. “What is it? – You don’t own me, Sherlock. You never did and you never will. You can’t own a person. You can’t—”

“I want to be the only one!” Sherlock barked and let go of John quickly, covering his mouth in shock and then fisting at his own hair. He paced shortly in front of John, turned, slipped by John and tired to escape the bathroom with jittery movements that John denied effortlessly. “Let me go, let me out!” 

John grabbed him and manhandled him down onto the edge of the bath roughly, “No. Whether you like it or not, we’re talking about this, or so help me I will walk out of that door and…well, you won’t see me for a bit.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” Sherlock intoned, fighting John’s hold for a moment or two, and then slumping down on the bath edge, clinging to John’s elbows. He looked intentionally around at the bathroom and the uncomfortable way in which he was perched on the lip of the bath and clenched his jaw, curling his bare toes into the bathroom rug. “This is ridiculous…”

John looked down at him, noticed the shiver of distress and chill run through Sherlock’s spine, and then sighed, grasping for one of his hands to tug him back into the bedroom, pushing him down on the bed instead, “Go on. I won’t leave this alone, Sherlock, not unless you want me to actually leave,” he said as he let him go to briskly get changed, yanking on his underwear and trousers so roughly that they creaked.

“Are you trying to blackmail me?” Sherlock leered with his head bowed and his spine curved.

“If that’s the only way to get anything out of you, then yes,” John bit back, and moved to stand in front of Sherlock with his arms folded. “Go on.”

After several silent moments, John span on his heels to leave and Sherlock snarled, “I can’t explain it!”

“Try.”

“I’m selfish, all right?” Sherlock told him, tugging his bed sheets over his nakedness. “I’m selfish and greedy and I don’t want any other man to have you like I have. This is the one thing that only I have with you, and I want it to stay that way—It wasn’t always like this, I haven’t always wanted it to just be between us. I’ve never thought this way before. At the start I didn’t care. I didn’t. I just wanted to orgasm and I knew that to do so, and to do so spectacularly, I needed your hands and yours touch, because nothing else seemed to compare to it. But… somewhere down the line, all that changed and I wanted you for myself. Fully and completely – Personally, I’d not want you to have a woman, either, but that’s somehow different…I hated when you dated stupid women before any of this, and I will probably continue to hate when you date stupid women, there is no new opinion or feeling connected to it. Dating men however…it’s …I vehemently don’t want to be a witness to that. To know that they are touching you the way I have, that they’re wiping away the memory—I can’t explain it! It’s just different!”

Sherlock grimaced intensely at his own words and screwed his eyes shut as he stood up fluidly, wrapping his bed sheets around his body tightly with angry tugs and glaring at a point over John’s shoulder. He fell into a tense and stoic silence, giving away nothing else and hardly even blinking, and John sighed as he tried to digest what Sherlock had said and what he obviously wasn’t saying. Sherlock seemed meek and vulnerable even as he stood with a confident lift of his chin and a detached look on his face. The mixed and twisted contradiction pulled at John, and he wandered over to reach out and lay a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, stroking up to cup his neck. 

“There’s nothing else but lust and…friendship?” John asked quietly, searching Sherlock’s eyes when he turned them onto John’s face. “You love me but only as a friend, and you only don’t want me dating because you’re…well, jealous?”

“I’m not jealous.” Sherlock intoned.

John scoffed through his nose, “That’s exactly what you are – You want me to give you and only you my attention, no matter what that attention is.”

“No.”

“Yes,” John quarrelled, stroking his fingers down to Sherlock’s shoulder again, enjoying the warmth still radiating off him. “What else could it be, if not jealousy? You’ve always been this way, as you said, and I always thought it was jealousy. Friends can be jealous of girlfriends and that, it happens. – It’s happened to me.”

“I’m not jealous,” Sherlock insisted and took John’s hand, holding it for a moment before dropping it, “or not completely at any rate.”

John sighed, “What is it then? If you think it’s not that, then you must have some inkling to what else it is?”

Sherlock clenched his jaw, the muscles there twitching, “It’s about…about not wanting to lose you,” Sherlock said on such a quiet breath that John almost missed it, “I always knew I would, and I know there isn’t really a way to stop it – You could find a woman, start a family, and you’ll leave me. I don’t care what lies you tell yourself, or me, we would drift apart John. We wouldn’t be the same. Nothing would.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is,” Sherlock smiled sadly, “but I had expected it, a little, and gotten used to the idea, gotten used to you dating women. I had planned for it – This though. You…and I. That was obviously not planned. Neither was you thinking about dating other men and—It’s just different. I really don’t think I can fully explain anything! I don’t think I could cope with the fact that you would leave my side for another man. Another man that you would live with and be friends with—”

John stepped closer on reflex, a heavy weight on his chest, “Some things would change, yes, but I’d still see you. Whether I was with a man or a woman, I’d see you. You’re my best friends. I couldn’t – wouldn’t – leave you.”

“You really think any woman or man would allow you to see me on a regular basis? – Especially now! I wouldn’t be an ex partner as such, but to them I wouldn’t be that far off,” Sherlock told him with a faint sneer, clutching at the bed sheets around him, “We’ve been sexual together. I’m basically an ex lover, and I very much doubt anyone would be happy to let their spouse or significant other visit an old ex lover for long periods of time. And so, you would stay away, to stop the drama, the fights, you would stay away for longer and longer. You would pick the person you were in love with, the person you wanted a life with, other your difficult, remote friend—”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“Are you me?” John exclaimed loudly. “Hm? Are you? Do you know what I would or wouldn’t do? – No. No you bloody don’t. You already said that I sometimes surprise you, well; I would continue to do so wouldn’t I? You are a big part of my life, Sherlock. I will not give that up for anything or anyone!”

Sherlock, unconvinced, looked away and then sat back down on the bed with a loose shrug, “The fact still stands, that I would rather you didn’t date men. If you were going to leave me for anyone, I want it to be with a woman you can have children with, can have something you can’t have with me, that I can’t give you.”

John exhaled deeply, and after a few minutes of silence, he walked over and cradled Sherlock’s face, “You can’t keep me for yourself. You can’t use me like some sort of—”

“I’m not using you.”

“You would be if you were to stop me from finding a romantic relationship just because you were jealous,” John frowned and smoothed the crease between Sherlock’s brows, suddenly noticing how different they were and how far they’d come. John would never have touched Sherlock as much as he was doing at that moment. “You don’t want anything else to happen…between us, right? No… no romance or anything like that? Just friendship and…well, sex, yeah?”

“You really feel like you need romance? It’s overrated, John. You’re happy. Right here, right now. The life you have with me, the life even before this thing happened with us, you’re happy,” Sherlock told him confidently. “Do you really want to give it all up for—”

“We won’t always be chasing criminals through the night, Sherlock,” John said in annoyance, even as he combed his fingers through Sherlock’s tangled curls and bent down to press their foreheads together briefly, “Look, I’m not saying I will go off with a man right away, or a woman for that matter. I’m not saying I’ll find the love of my life straight off the bat, what I’m saying is that you can’t keep me for yourself and keep me from the world and the people in it and the mistakes I might make. – You don’t know what will happen. This…thing might run it’s course and we’ll go back to just being friends and your opinion on everything will change again, and…”

“…You threatened to leave before,” Sherlock suddenly whispered. “You’ve done it a few times, actually. In fact, you’ve really left the flat altogether before—”

“But I always came back.”

“Why?”

“Because…” John trailed off at the look on Sherlock’s face and then huffed and moved to sit down beside him, “you know why. Just like you…love me, as a friend. I…love…you…too. – God this is awkward. I don’t think we’ve gone anywhere during this conversation, have we? We always seem to go round in circles and skim over the real issue.”

“And then have sex.”

John snorted on a giggle and nodded, turning to look at Sherlock’s hesitant smile, “Yeah – Although, that’s still relatively new. We never did that before all of this.”

“No,” Sherlock agreed with a nod, leaning subtly against John’s side as John slowly pushed a hand onto Sherlock’s leg.

John gazed at Sherlock and then glanced aside in thought, experiencing the familiar hum of arousal as he stroked and flexed his fingers, feeling out the muscle in Sherlock’s thigh and then tracing the shape of his kneecap. Everything was shifting sequence from the touch and he couldn’t help but look down as he playfully crawled his fingers into the bed sheet covering Sherlock, rumpling it up and exposing Sherlock’s bare skin again to rub his fingertips into. Sherlock exhaled shakily but silently beside him as John wrote and drew numbers and patterns up and down Sherlock’s leg, and John tilted his head just in time to capture Sherlock’s nearing mouth in a light kiss that made him dizzy. 

They breathed against one another for a second or two and then separated, “It’s getting late,” John muttered when he noticed the time, “I best get something to eat and go bed. I’ve got work tomorrow…”

Sherlock nodded and kissed him again, rubbing their noses together before he pulled back and adjusted the bed sheet as it fell from his shoulders, “I don’t want anything, before you ask.”

“Don’t care, you’re having something,” John told him and smoothed his palm across the bared expanse of Sherlock’s back, lowering his eyes to the faint but telling bulge at the crumpled folds of the sheet in Sherlock’s lap, unable to not be captivated by Sherlock refractory period, “you need food and a drink.”

“Are you talking to me or my penis?” Sherlock teased and smirked at John when John looked up into his face

John returned the smirk and caressed along Sherlock’s spine, “Well, he seems the most attentive so…”

Sherlock snorted with laughter and flushed quickly before John’s eyes, “Yes, but “he” has a one track mind, which has nothing to do with sustenance.”

“Clearly,” John murmured, incapable of stopping the smirk from widening, and hooked Sherlock’s neck to pull him in for another kiss, “it’s flattering though, and impressive.”

“Is it?”

“It is.”

Sherlock reached for John, leaving the bed sheets to pool around his waist, and grasped and groped at John’s arms eagerly, “I am younger than you,” he mumbled against John’s mouth with a grin that John bit at, “so it shouldn’t be that impressive.”

“Oi,” John huffed and pulled Sherlock to his chest with both arms, smearing his mouth mindlessly down Sherlock’s throat, “let’s not do this again. We both know how it ends – Or must I remind you which of us has less stamina and self-control, Mr Premature?”

“I’m not premature,” Sherlock complained with awkwardness and dropped his head down on John’s shoulder, clinging to John’s back.

John sucked a bruising kiss into the pale skin of Sherlock’s neck and nosed at it with an enthusiastic smile, “You are getting better,” John conceded, powerless to prevent himself from touching and mapping the naked skin of Sherlock’s back over and over again while he pushed the bed sheet to the floor, leaving Sherlock fully uncovered once more.

Sherlock clung to him more, curling his arms around John’s torso strongly and pressing so close that John paused in his caresses with a soft frown, holding Sherlock back just as tightly. With their chests pushed together, John was sure he felt the moment their heartbeats synchronised, and had to fight the lump in his throat and the threatening prickle of tears with bewilderment and exasperation. They stayed crushed together for a full minute of reticence and then very slowly disentangled to kiss again. 

“You okay?” John whispered in the small space between their lips.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied with a shrug and leaned back with dilated pupils and a pinked face, neck and chest. “Will you ever let me penetrate you?”

John jerked and sighed sharply through his nose with a half-hearted glare, “I really wish you’d stop just randomly asking that.”

“I really want to penetrate you.”

“Yes, I bloody well know that, thanks.”

Sherlock smiled and lifted his eyebrows, “Well?”

“Bored and fed up of what we normally do already then?” John asked with an awkward expression, playing with Sherlock’s long fingers. “Truthfully, I don’t think I’ll be up for that…and we don’t have to do that at all. Not every gay or bisexual man does anal, Sherlock – There is more to life than sticking your penis into holes, you realise?”

Hearing his own words repeated back to him made Sherlock pout and roll his eyes, flushing a deeper shade of pink, “I know…”

John unexpectedly dipped his gaze to Sherlock’s erection and only realised what he was about to suggest a second too late to stop the words from leaving his mouth, “I could try giving you a blowjob though, if you…want? I mean, I’ve never done it, obviously, and I’ve not done it to you, but you’ve done it to me. I might not like it, or, you know, you might not like it—”

“Yes,” Sherlock groaned after blinking rapidly in John’s direction with a glazed look on his face.

“Yes you might not like it, or yes you want me to?”

Sherlock nodded and shuffled closer excitedly, “Yes.”

John grinned unstoppably and cleared his throat with nervousness, eyeing up Sherlock’s crotch, “If I don’t like it, I get to stop, no questions asked, deal? – And if I don’t stop and you need to…if you feel like you’re going to…ejaculate, then you need to tell me or pull away, because I will not be swallowing—God that’s something I never thought I’d say. I’m often in your position, wondering what’s so bad about it, even though I damn well know what’s so bad about it—”

“Calm down,” Sherlock told him with a light rumble of laughter that shot more arousal down John’s spine.

“…And don’t think that I’ve forgotten what we were just talking about before. We…we still might need to…discuss…” John trailed off as Sherlock drifted his fingers up John’s arms and into his hair, massaging his scalp and then dropping his hands to grope at John’s biceps with a shiver of delight. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone be so…interested in my arms before.”

Sherlock smiled widely at him and followed the length of John’s arms to rub his palms, “That’s not true.”

“No? How would you know?”

“I’ve been around when you’ve had girlfriends.”

“Not all the time…”

“You’ve got marvellous arms,” Sherlock told him and emphasised the praise by greedily caressing back up to clutch at John’s shoulders and pull him close, nosing at his cheek and jaw, “I’ve always thought so.”

John grinned and turned his head to nip at Sherlock’s ear, “Really?”

“Every inch of you is marvellous,” Sherlock mumbled and cradled John’s throat carefully before spreading and pushing his fingers down John’s back.

“You’re just buttering me up,” John replied with amusement and leaned his head back until he could see Sherlock’s face, lifting his eyebrows pointedly, “I’ve done the exact same thing to women you know.”

Sherlock nodded with a sly grin, “I know. Where do you think I learned it from?”

“Git.” John allowed a soft and lingering kiss and then sighed, slipping to his knees and shifting around to face Sherlock’s seated figure, parting his legs to fit between them. He looked at the hardened length of Sherlock’s penis and thought about what he was going to do and if he actually wanted to, inclined against Sherlock’s legs. 

The penis bobbed as Sherlock laughed huskily, “I don’t know whether to be offended or amused at the look of terror on your face,” he said, breathing a little laboured. 

“It’s not like I’ve done this before,” John griped and shot a gentle glare up at Sherlock’s beaming face, “and stop smiling like the Cheshire bloody cat, I’ve not done anything yet – Shuffle a bit closer.”

“It’s not that bad,” Sherlock told him as he widened his legs and moved nearer, only faintly jumping when John cupped his right hand over Sherlock’s hip, “How can you go down on a woman without a thought in the world but you’re panicking and iffy about doing the same to—”

“Shut up.”

“Its just skin,” Sherlock went on, looking down at his own penis as he spoke and angling his hips enough that it tautly twitched in the air between them, “surely women don’t taste like strawberries and cream?”

John snorted on a giggle and curled his left hand around the base of Sherlock’s penis, relishing in the feel of it against his fingers when it twitched again, “Right, enough, yeah? – And if you want me to stop just say…or warn me if you’re going to…” John gestured awkwardly with the hand on Sherlock’s crotch and then leaning forward.

Sherlock made a small, choked noise in the back of his throat in eagerness and John paused as a bead of pre-ejaculate grew thickly before him to dribble down the underside of Sherlock’s flushing penis, wetting John’s fingers. Forcing himself not to glance upward into Sherlock’s face, John inhaled deeply, relaxed his jaw, and then took the head of Sherlock into his mouth slowly. Sherlock gasped tightly and fisted the mattress, and another small flood of tangy pre-ejaculate in response to the heat of John’s mouth coated the end of John’s tongue a mere second later. John rubbed the taste of Sherlock around his mouth a moment and then took in more of him, finding the thick weight of him strange but not overly unpleasant, and inhaled deeply through his nose as he took Sherlock as far as he could before he began to gag lightly. 

The taste, sensation and scent of Sherlock was faintly overwhelming, and so he took his time and set up a steady rhythm, practicing with swipes of his tongue and increasing suction, and applying techniques that he himself enjoyed when he had been on the receiving end. Sherlock was exceedingly responsive to everything he did and John glanced at the way Sherlock’s thighs bunched with muscle, quivering himself with a flare of confidence and satisfaction, letting the head of Sherlock’s cock rest on his bottom lip as he lapped at the glans and recalled how erotic it was to taste himself in Sherlock’s mouth when the roles had been reversed. 

Sherlock’s bitten off mewl and bundled up whimpers made John smirk around the flesh between his lips, and he looked up after another moment of deliberation to watch Sherlock chew down on his lips and roll his head back in pleasure. Sherlock’s hips were stuttering and tense, and John increased his grasp on them when Sherlock uncontrollably rutted forward for more.

A small part of John was still scared and cautious of what he was doing and what it was doing to their friendship, and replayed some parts of their earlier argument pointedly. There was something obviously brewing between them, something that had been doing so since they met, just like he’d thought of previously, and although John knew it was there, he wasn’t completely sure on what it was, nor was he sure that he wanted to know what it was either. 

Sherlock’s shaking hand combed through John’s hair suddenly and John realised they were staring at each other, Sherlock’s eyes dark and his lips parted as he gazed down at him with a dazed expression. John’s heart leapt and he kept the eye contact with Sherlock as he noisily pulled off Sherlock’s cock to swallow thickly, breathe out across the wet, rosy skin bobbing in front of him, and then chase it back into his mouth with a lowering of his eyelids and an uncontainable groan. The sound made Sherlock gasp and cup John’s cheek and ear, and John let Sherlock set the pace with a shuddering inhale through his nose, keeping his hands on Sherlock’s hips. Sherlock petted and caressed John’s hair, scalp and neck repeatedly in a possessive and eager manner, and shuddered visibly in delight when John swallowed again. With long fingers, Sherlock felt how much he stretched open John’s mouth and moaned with a yearning gleam in his eyes.

After a few minutes John moved off and rubbed at his aching jaw, clearing his throat and licking his lips, “You okay?” John croaked up at Sherlock as he trembled irrepressibly.

“You’re quite good at this,” Sherlock wheezed in reply with his eyes scrunching shut.

“Yeah?” John grinned and shrugged, stroking Sherlock’s trembling hip and clearing his throat again. “I’m just doing what I like – Are you close? You, um, you look like you are.”

Sherlock nodded roughly and slowly peeked at John in confusion when John got up to his feet, “What are you doing? – Don’t stop now. It wouldn’t have taken long—”

“Yeah, I know. You’re not finishing in my mouth, Sherlock. I told you that,” John told him as he unbuttoned his trousers again, adjusting his own budding erection as he leaned forward to kiss Sherlock on the lips lightly. Sherlock seemed startled and then intensely curious, and returned the kiss to lick into John’s mouth to taste himself until John pulled back. “Shower?”

“Hm?”

“Can we do more in the shower?” John asked him with a smile, feeling bold and almost liberated from the act he had performed. It was a vaguely similar feeling to the one he had when he had gone down on a girl for the first time and made her orgasm. “Come on. Just a quick one.”

Sherlock blinked sluggishly at him and then stood up and held John’s hand, “A quick shower or a quick—?”

“Both,” John sniggered and pulled Sherlock to his side, wrapping an arm around his waist to keep him stable when Sherlock wobbled on his feet. “And then we’ll eat and go bed.”

“Together?”

“Yes, I told you, you’re eating something,” John told him sternly.

“No,” Sherlock sighed as they stepped into the bathroom again and John turned on the shower, “I meant for the latter?”

John paused and frowned, glancing back over at Sherlock as Sherlock leaned up against the bathroom wall and shut the door, “…You want to go bed together?”

“No.”

“Then why did you—?”

“I was asking if that’s what you meant. I thought you were suggesting it.”

“Oh,” John said, still frowning, and shook his head gently, “No. We’ll shower and eat together and then go bed separately…like always.”

Sherlock nodded and ruffled his sweaty fringe from his face, “All right.”

“…Did you want to?”

“No.” Sherlock huffed and gave John an odd sort of glare, the colour of arousal still dark and patchy across his face and down his chest.

John squinted at him and then pulled him suddenly close, ignoring the strange tension still between them and the prickling at the back of his neck, to stroke and squeeze Sherlock’s erection. The feeling of assertiveness was still singing through his veins, and with a twitching grin at Sherlock’s pleasured sigh, John stared at Sherlock’s delighted expression and cupped his wet glans, rubbing the ridge slowly. The act of stroking Sherlock was excessively familiar and easy, as always, and John stretched it out with lingering and feather light touches, pushing Sherlock up against the wall beside the shower when the fervour between them built to a fever pitch, the steam from the running shower fogging the mirror across from them. 

“Hurry up,” Sherlock grumbled with a needy sort of growl a minute later, and grabbed at John’s open trousers, fighting inelegantly to get them and John’s underwear down his thighs eagerly. “I’d like to ejaculate again sometime tonight.”

John lifted his eyebrows at his attitude and then jerked his chin in the direction of the shower, “Get in then.”

Sherlock slithered away impatiently and was slippery and overeager when John stripped naked again and followed, pressing Sherlock into the tiles to take them both in hand. The sight of the two of them slotted together, skin to skin, was an immensely arousing one, and once that John had witnessed more times than he cared to count, and he took several shaking breaths, trying not to think of how much things had changed as he moved his mouth to breathe against Sherlock’s damp collarbone. They both seemed oversensitive and tightly strung with lingering anxiety from their argument and heightened arousal, and so in the end it only took several hard and wet gripping strokes of John’s hand to finish them both off. 

Sherlock was the first of them to climax, coating John’s navel slightly with a loud and effervescent, hissing moan, and John panted heavily into Sherlock’s neck, following after him with a grunt and a choked moan of release. They breathed heavily but silently afterward, nerve endings throbbing and the warm water beating down against them, seeping between their crowded bodies, and John sighed, allowing Sherlock to touch and stroke at his dampening hair and face as he swiped the mess from their abdomens and flexed his legs.

“We could…you know,” John said into the side of Sherlock’s jaw, looking up with an anxious twinge in his gut when Sherlock paused, “share. Share a bed, I mean. It never occurred to me but now that I’ve thought about it, it would be terribly useful… I’d not have to drag myself up those sodding stairs every night—”

Sherlock huffed in faint amusement and after becoming once more entranced with John’s hair, neck and shoulders with the pads of his fingers, he moved away to duck his head under the water, “Better we not do that. I told you, I only thought that you were suggesting it and so I wanted to… rectify the situation.”

John frowned but nodded, clearing his throat, “Just a thought – Or we could use my bedroom. We always end up in yours.”

“My room is closer,” Sherlock stated with an infuriated look in John’s direction, still breathing heavily from orgasm as he shivered and grabbed for the shower gel and shampoo, “and my bed is better. Comfier. Bigger.”

“The beds are the same size, Sherlock,” John told him, shrugging and moving to begin washing his own body, “but fine. I just…I was just saying that it would be…beneficial…for me…to not have to always go back and forth – It wouldn’t be all the time, either. Just…the weekends or something. So I can just… wallow in the…afterglow and sleep. Instead of getting up, gathering my clothes, and forcing myself up to my room.”

Sherlock eyed him curiously as they both showered, brushing against John every so often with a suggestive flutter of his fingers, “All right,” he said quietly once the shower was shut off and they were wrapping up in towels, “Weekends then.” He looked abnormally happy about the entire thing, his eyes shining with a somewhat roguish light, and John watched him suspiciously, trailing after him to take his forearm.

John opened his mouth when Sherlock looked at him, but anything he wanted so say were just perused words, words that he’d said many times over he thought he might actually go mad if he were to say them again so soon, and so he just sighed and stroked the faint hairs on Sherlock’s arm before letting him go. He wasn’t sure if they would ever work out what was happening with them, as it seemed neither of them truly knew, or wanted to look too deeply into it. No matter how they came at it, it always brought up an argument that looped endlessly or brought up additions to their strange pact that could not be properly explained. They were forever moving forward in their odd relationship, first by being pushed by Sherlock’s demanding demeanour, and more recently by John’s growing need to have more of Sherlock, but they didn’t actually seem to be going anywhere, the relation leading down an unknown path. Did John want it to go somewhere? Did John want a romantic relationship with Sherlock? John honestly didn’t have an answer, even as his heart skipped. He yearned for someone to talk to about it, and swallowed thickly with emotion when Sherlock leaned in to kiss him and worship John's bared torso with his large hands, changing the subject with talk of food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know...John is forever contradicting things and over-thinking things and both of them are being blind silly boys...but it's expected, right?  
> People can and do act this way. Emotions are tricky and weird. Thoughts and feelings will dramatically shift and...well, like I said, they're just silly.
> 
> Hopefully not too silly that you lovelies hate this chapter!


	13. Looking In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me!  
> Real Life is rubbish. Really, truly sucks...sucks all motivation, inspiration and creativity. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience. I am sorry for making everyone wait, I really don't mean to do it.  
> It's just so difficult to write lately.  
> I hope you understand and stick with me. I really am grateful.
> 
> Love you all

John peeked toward the alley entrance as he sucked a fairly big mark on Sherlock’s collarbone, his left hand working over Sherlock’s erection with quick, precise and overly slick movements, and his right unbuttoning Sherlock’s shirt to expose more of his torso. They didn’t have much time before Lestrade rang after their whereabouts, and so John was rushing to please Sherlock as quickly as he could. Sherlock’s overwhelming arousal that afternoon had come as a surprise to them both, and although John could have denied him, could have ignored it all until they got home and told Sherlock to find some other way to disregard it, the look of wanton desire on Sherlock’s impish face had tipped John into an almost equal amount of eagerness instantaneously. John honestly couldn’t recall the last time that he had felt so dizzy with want for another person from just one, simple look. He had become so used to Sherlock’s aroused state and responding in kind to it, that it was beginning to be an automatic response.

Sherlock keened highly and then shuddered and arched, and John grinned, uncovering a nipple to kiss and gently bite, satisfied with the rumbling laughter and gasp of pleasure he got in reply. His own erection was cramped and hot inside his underwear, and John rearranged himself with a wince before suddenly twisting Sherlock around when the tell-tale signs of his climax rippled over Sherlock’s face and throbbed up the twitching length of his cock. Sherlock’s forehead knocked into the wall forcefully as he fell into it, and he hissed and then groaned, spilling up across the bricks with a full body tremor and an erratic rutting of his hips. John gripped hold of him, keeping him upright, and pushed his face between Sherlock’s shoulder blades, inhaling the scent of him with a low moan.

“All right?” John whispered once Sherlock had stopped trembling, sweeping both hands around Sherlock’s waist to touch and then tuck away his flagging erection. Sherlock rocked back into him in reply, sighing and reaching down to take up one of John’s hands while he turned around to face him.

“Now you,” Sherlock exhaled in a rumbling purr, his eyes half closed and face flushed. He reached for John, stepping up to nudge John back into the opposite wall, covering him with his open coat. “We’ve got time.”

“No we haven’t,” John laughed, until he saw the blood on Sherlock’s brow and frowned. “Shit. You’ve grazed your head – Lean down, let me see.”

“It’s nothing.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Not badly.”

John shot him a half-hearted glare and gripped his head; tipping it down to get a better look at the scrape and ignoring Sherlock’s grunt of protest, “It’ll need to be cleaned out. It’s covered with brick dust. And it’ll probably come up in an impressive bruise – God, Sherlock, I’m sorry.”

“Hm. Apologise with your cock in my mouth,” Sherlock mumbled, swooping down for a kiss, knocking their noses together.

“Sherlock!” John spluttered, flushing in pleasure at his crude language and glancing at the entrance of the alley again, fighting to push Sherlock back by his chest. “Sherlock. Sherlock, stop. Sherlock, we don’t have time! We’re cutting it close as it is.”

“I’ll be quick,” Sherlock said eagerly, trailing sucking kisses down John’s throat and nipping at his Adam’s apple, moaning when John combed his fingers through his ruffled curls. 

“We don’t have time,” John stressed but tipped his head back with a hard swallow, powerless to stop Sherlock from pulling his coat collar and jumper neckline aside to kiss at his collarbone. “Look, seriously, we don’t have time for this. We already risked it doing…you know, doing what we just did. – Think about it this way, it’s either…this…or the case. And we both know which one you’ll pick. So come on.”

Sherlock lifted his head and arched an eyebrow, “You want me to pick?”

“We need to get to the crime scene as soon as we can, before…I don’t know, evidence is messed with or something. Lestrade can’t keep it closed off for long. He’s bending a lot of rules for us. For you. As he always does. We owe it to him to get there in a reasonable time,” John said, watching Sherlock’s eyes flitting over his face with intense focus. Being the centre of Sherlock’s attention was satisfying and extremely exhilarating. “I don’t mind waiting until we get back. I’m patient, unlike you. Clearly.”

Sherlock’s other eyebrow lifted like the first and he didn’t give John any warning before he reached down and cupped John’s erection through his jeans, “I pick you,” he said and kissed John’s gasping mouth, smirking as he rubbed and squeezed John through the layers of denim and cloth, persistent and enthusiastic. “I pick you, John. Every time.”

A hot flush of arousal and heart lurching affection surged up through his body, and John gaped at Sherlock with wide eyes, “Sherlock…you…”

“Lestrade can wait,” Sherlock whispered, deftly popping open the button on John’s jeans and delving his fingers in to touch and caress bare, hard and moist skin. “It won’t take long anyway. I can tell just by the feel of you. You’re on edge. Have been for a while. Just like I was – God you really must have wanted it as much as I did. – I crave you so badly, John. Yearn for you so much that the mere thought of you, and what we’ll do together, makes me vertiginous…”

John huffed out a shaky laugh, unable to look away from Sherlock’s eyes, “But the Work always comes first…”

“Not today,” Sherlock replied cheekily and then slowed to a stop with a dawning realisation of what he’d just said. He stared back at John and blinked, frowning, his hand still cradling John’s throbbing erection.

John waited nervously for at least a minute, keeping himself still and swallowing the lump in his throat, “…Sherlock?” 

“Hm.”

“Sherlock…are you okay?”

“Hm.”

John sighed through his nose; amazed he was still as hard as before, “Sherlock. Sherlock, could you let go of me? – Lestrade is waiting! In the building across the bloody road! If he decides to—”

“Hm,” Sherlock interrupted, his brow furrowing and his eyes distant.

With another sigh, John leaned up and kissed him, smiling shyly when Sherlock blinked and focused on him directly, “Hey. Listen, we need to go. You have thieves to find – And we need to do something about your head,” John murmured. He rummaged in his pockets and then in Sherlock’s, pulling a handkerchief out to dab at the blood, which was slowly welling at Sherlock’s brow. 

Sherlock watched him silently for a few seconds, staring into John’s eyes, and then moved to kiss John lightly, nosing his way across John’s cheek and stroking John’s erection enticingly, “After you—”

“No… Sherlock, we can’t spend anymore time doing…this…” John said through his teeth with a shuddering moan, rutting into Sherlock clever hand with growing eagerness. Sherlock had been right about him being on the edge of orgasm and as it fizzed and bubbled up inside him, John was too lost to stop Sherlock from fluidly crouching down to pull John’s twitching cock into his mouth.

Sherlock made a tight, wet, seal around John and sucked, only once, before John was pulsing across his tongue and down his throat. Overcome with dizziness and pleasure, John moaned brokenly and stared down at Sherlock as wave after wave of bliss washed over him. Sherlock eventually pulled off with a soft, moist pop, and straightened up, arching one eyebrow as the only warning for the deep and passionate kiss he bestowed on John in the next moment, tasting of John’s own ejaculate and the hint of coffee he had that morning.

“Ugh. Why did you do that?” John laughed against Sherlock’s lips, half-heartedly kissing back with an extra flush, leaning heavily against the wall.

“Now you’ve got to do the same for me – It’s only fair,” Sherlock muttered with a grin, licking into John’s mouth and sucking on his bottom lip. “It can be my treat for solving the case.”

“You’ve already tasted your own… stuff – And we haven’t even started the bloody case!”

Sherlock huffed, kissed John once more with a pleased hum, and then stepped back to let John tuck himself away, “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Let me just dab at your bleeding forehead—”

“No time! The game is on!”

John sighed with a weak glower and watched Sherlock strut from the alley, “Sherlock, your trousers are still undone.”

Sherlock paused and quickly buttoned and zipped up, glancing over his shoulder with a small, coy grin before he flicked up his collar continued on. John followed him with a mutter, smoothing out his clothes, and ignored the smug expression Sherlock sent his way as they finally arrived at the crime scene. He felt momentarily guilty for keeping everyone waiting, and as he went by them, he tried to keep his eyes on his own feet or Sherlock’s back. From the untrained eye it seemed as though nothing was different between them, but as John locked eyes with Lestrade, John could tell that the experienced man knew something was off.

Sherlock breezed through the room like normal, with an ignorant air and a flippant attitude. However Lestrade frowned, flicking his eyes between John and Sherlock and back again. John felt suddenly very nervous and shot him a series of tight, uneasy smiles, which only made Lestrade frown harder at them both, suspicious at the mark on Sherlock’s forehead and John’s obvious discomfort.

It took less than 96 hours for Sherlock to solve the case and throughout that time John had successfully disregarded every suspicious glance Lestrade sent their way, making sure to keep his eyes on a point over Lestrade’s shoulder whenever he needed to talk to him. Of course, this only made Lestrade’s suspicion worse, and after Sherlock had collapsed at the flat in exhaustion, falling almost instantly to sleep, Lestrade sent him a small and seemingly unassuming text, asking if he’d like to celebrate with a quick pint down the local pub while “sleeping beauty” slumbered.

John saw the text for what it was, a way out, a way for John to get everything off his chest, and a way for Lestrade to understandably pull answers from him. John had wanted to tell someone for a long time, he needed advice on his relationship with Sherlock; he needed an outsider’s perspective. John was still overly muddled about his feelings on the matter, he knew he felt strongly about it but wasn’t entirely sure what “it” was nor what his feelings specifically were. Sherlock and him had gotten nowhere and only seemed to chase each other, and the subject between them, in wonky circles. Therefore, after receiving the text, John took a deep breath, grabbed his coat, and waited until he was seated with Lestrade in a secluded corner of a local pub before he allowed everything that had been sitting on his tongue to tumble free.

“Sherlock and I are in a sexual relationship,” John said in a rush of breath, inhaling sharply and shakily once he’d finished. He stared at Lestrade and then looked away, covering his face with both hands with a grimace.

“…I’m sorry?”

John grit his teeth with hot cheeks and dropped one hand to grip the edge of the table, “Sherlock and I—”

“Right. Okay,” Lestrade interrupted with a harsh and awkward exhale through his nose. “I…um, okay. Wow.”

“Not…not sex. Not full sex. You know, not, uh, not penetration. Just…” John trailed off with a clumsy and lewd gesture and let out a huff of short laughter at Lestrade’s uncomfortable expression. “Sorry. Sorry…I just needed to tell someone. I needed to… confide in someone. And I just…you were already suspecting something and…and Sherlock and I are just getting nowhere with this and…God I don’t know. Not exactly the best time or place to do this in but…”

“Yeah. Well. Congratulations? I mean, good. That’s…great.” Lestrade nodded and cleared his throat, “I have to say though – I’m not entirely surprised.”

John glared with a scoff, rolling his eyes, “Knew you’d say that.”

“Well, it’s the truth. Everyone—”

“Yeah, well, everyone was wrong,” John snapped and rubbed his forehead, turning to face Lestrade a little better, pulling his chair close. “It’s not been that long. Sherlock and I weren’t bloody dating or…or anything when everyone thought we were – This started after Donovan spiked Sherlock’s coffee with sodding Viagra.”

Lestrade looked perplexed for a moment and leaned forward, “Wait…what?”

“And we’re not even together. Not…not really. Not properly. We’re just…doing…stuff,” John told him, taking a large gulp of beer and pinching the bridge of his nose when Lestrade gawked at him with a bewildered gaze. “Don’t look at me like that, Greg, for goodness sake.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but this is just… ridiculous – Let me get this straight,” Lestrade sighed, looking John over and then tilting his head, “You and Sherlock are…shagging because—”

“No. No…not really. I told you it’s not…not sex with…penetration,” John muttered under his breath with a blush at Lestrade quirking mouth. “We do…other…things.”

“What? Like humping against an alleyway wall?” Lestrade asked in impish amusement. “That graze on Sherlock’s eyebrow?—God, you dirty, naughty bastard! – Someone just had their ancestors, antique portrait stolen and you and Sherlock thought it a great time to go at it like rabbits down an alley?”

John’s blush spread like a hot rash, “No. No, we…we didn’t…”

“You’re a shit liar, mate,” Lestrade snorted, lifting his eyebrows as he took a long and deep drink, licking foam from his top lip. “So…you two aren’t “official” then?”

“No,” John murmured. “We aren’t…anything – I tried talking to him about it but…well…”

“Yeah…”

“It’s so messed up! It started off as…this stupid thing. And now it’s…even more stupid but I…I…God, I feel something but I don’t know what it is.”

Lestrade blinked at him slowly in annoyance, “Yes, you do.”

“No,” John sighed, shaking his head and then one hand. “I really don’t.”

“You fancy him,” Lestrade told him bluntly. “Always have.”

“No.”

“Yes!” Lestrade exclaimed. “Sure, maybe at first it wasn’t exactly, specifically him you fancied. As in it wasn’t his body. It was what he offered, what he represented, what he gave to you. You and him are both mad. Flirting with danger the way you do – Him more than you, of course, but still, you stuck around and you enjoyed what Sherlock did, what he created, right? – But now, now it’s shifted and expanded to encompass him as a person, as a sexual individual—Are you just…freaking out because of your sexuality? It can’t be much of a freak out if you’re shagging him.”

“We aren’t shagging!”

“You’re being sexual with him, John, it counts as shagging. It’s sexual contact – Christ, you’re a doctor! You must know this. And if not then, I don’t know, just watch Jeremy Kyle,” Lestrade murmured with a quirk to his mouth.

“God, no. Sherlock watches enough of that for the both of us,” John grumbled, anxiously and uneasily rubbing his jaw, the back of his neck, and then his forehead. “I don’t know what to do. This can’t go on. It’s…not right, is it? Not healthy.”

Lestrade shrugged nonchalantly, “If you’re both happy and having fun, what’s the problem?”

“What if he gets bored?”

“Of you? It’ll never happen.”

John shook his head, “You don’t know that.”

“Is that all you’re worried about? Him getting bored of you and stopping your little…shagothon?” Lestrade asked sounding and looking suddenly disappointed. 

“No,” John told him quickly, cringing and looking away. “I don’t want to muck this up, Greg. I don’t want to ruin our friendship over something so…stupid – And what if I…I want more than…than just “sexual contact?””

Lestrade glanced thoughtfully at his pint, “I take it he doesn’t?” 

“This is Sherlock we’re talking about.”

“Have you asked him?”

“…Asked him what?” John asked and blushed, dreading ever bringing the subject matter up. “He’s not interested in relationships, Greg. He told me that. He’s told me that, more or less, repeatedly. – He wants to keep doing what we’re doing without the… hassle of a relationship. And he says that he’d prefer it if I’d go off with a woman if we decide to stop it too. He basically forbade me not to go off with a…well, you know, with a man.”

Lestrade stared at him and then very slowly arched a pointed eyebrow, “Right?”

“And I don’t even know if I want a relationship with him anyway. I mean, Jesus Christ, it’s difficult enough being friends with the man, let alone—”

“You fancy the posh, tailored trousers off him,” Lestrade told him with an exasperated tone. “And he fancies you just as much, probably more, I don’t know—Look, I know it’s hard talking to him sometimes and I know he puts up this front, this mask, to prevent unwanted attention or discussions, but…if he’s doing this with you, if he trusts you so much that he’s allowing you to see a human weakness of his, then, God, then that means so much, don’t you see that? He might say one thing, but don’t forget that he’s an exceptional liar when he wants to be. And behind this mask of his, he’s practically screaming for more commitment from you – If the man pleadingly forbids you from dating a man, what do you think that means? Hm?”

John blinked widely at him and swallowed, “Well, I wouldn’t say he pleaded as such, he just—”

“It means that he can’t bear to see you with another man the same way you’re being with him – John, he sounds like a lovesick and emotional lover,” Lestrade said and adjusted his weight, leaning on the table and gesturing animatedly with his hands as he continued. “Think of it this way. You’re with someone who you’ve liked for ages, who you trust above all others, who you’ve been spending a great deal of time with and then even living with. For the sake of this example, let’s say it’s a woman, all right? You and her get a bit physical and your like for her, obviously, deepens. And then one day she tells you that she might want something more than you’ve been giving her and that she might pick another person, another man, over you. Now, I know you wouldn’t forbid her of doing that, but you’d not be very happy, would you? And living together as you would be, can you imagine the hurt you’d have to live through? Seeing them every day and knowing that you’ve lost them to someone else, that they’ve found someone “better” than you and you can never live up to—”

“I don’t want to be harsh, but… this isn’t like your relationship with your ex wife—”

“Yes it is! Almost all relationships are the same John, all right?” Lestrade snapped, calming after a few seconds and taking another gulp of his drink. “All I’m saying is that, to me, it’s obvious that you want more with Sherlock as much as he does with you. I might even go as far as to say you are in love with each other.”

John swallowed with difficulty and licked his dry lips, “No. No, I really don’t think so. Its just lust. That’s it…and that’s why it’s unhealthy. Because that’s all that is there between us – Sherlock might sometimes say he loves me but I think he only does it to—”

“Whoa! Hold on a second—He tells you he loves you?” Lestrade spluttered. “He says those exact words? He says “I love you, John,” he says that?”

“He loves me like a friend, you know, like I…with…him,” John tried to explain to a gawking Lestrade. “He told me that he—”

“Oh my God,” Lestrade barked out a laugh.

“He doesn’t love me romantically!” John clarified. “And I don’t…you know…I don’t either with him.”

“Bullshit!”

“I don’t!” John said defensively, feeling his stomach flip and flexing his fingers. “Greg, I’m serious, there is nothing else between us but…lustful…feelings.”

Lestrade looked at John with what seemed like pity and then sighed, “Put yourself in my place, John. Pretend for a moment I’ve come to you, and I’ve said exactly the same things as you have, what would you say to me?”

“That you’re possibly bisexual,” John said with a laugh that fell flat.

“John…really think about this – Or better yet, go home, write down on a piece of paper or…type it up on the computer, whichever, and put down everything that’s happened, everything that’s different in your changed relationship with Sherlock. And then look, really look, at what you’ve put. Try to distance yourself, for just a moment, and look at it like an outsider would. Diagnose yourself, Doctor.”

John let out a large breath and reluctantly nodded, “All right.”

Lestrade nodded in reply and then regarded him, shaking his head and chuckling, “God—He really says he loves you? I’ve never heard anything like that leave his lips for years. Well, not unless he’s talking about a case. – Christ. He tells you he loves you and then he goes and messes around with you instead of being ignorant of everything but the mystery like he normally does! If that isn’t real love, I don’t know what is. You must have some sort of powerful magical touch, John. Or a magical cock.” Lestrade grinned at him cheekily and wiggled his eyebrows. “I bet he’s right bossy in the sack too. You must have the patience of a nun…or you just shut up him with your magical—”

“Stop talking about my cock,” John laughed. “Otherwise I really will think you’re bisexual.”

Lestrade shrugged, “I’ve dabbled. I was high as a kite at the time but it still counts – His name was Jamie. Or was it Jason? No, no Jamie. Yeah, because I pretended it was a girl for ages afterward, and wasn’t creative enough to make up a new name. Plus he sort of looked like a girl.”

John lifted his eyebrow, “Are you sure he wasn’t a girl? Being high and everything, maybe you…got it wrong?”

“Well, if it was a girl, then she had a really pretty dick,” Lestrade commented and smirked when John snorted, dissolving into chuckles. 

“You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“Maybe. Does it matter?” Lestrade asked him with a shrug. “If it’s fun, if you’re happy, if you’re safe, then what’s the harm?” 

John grinned mischievously, “Were you the giver or the receiver?” He asked with a casual and joking tone that leaned too far to actual intrigue. 

“Oh?” Lestrade eyed him closely. “Are you asking for advice?”

“What? No!”

“Which do you want to be?” Lestrade questioned with a lewd grin that only stretched wider when John flushed and spluttered. “Oh my God, has it come up in conversation between you two?—It has, hasn’t it? Was it Sherlock asking? Does he want your magical—?”

“No!” 

Lestrade looked far too amused and relaxed for John’s liking, “So he wants to do you?”

John rubbed at his face, hunkering down over the table, “You were giving me this awkward expression before, when I…when I first brought up mine and Sherlock’s…change of relationship, but now all of a sudden you want to play Agony Aunt? Now you’re a gay sex expert?” John snorted, feeling out of sorts and embarrassed. “We’re not talking about this – Let’s…can we change the subject?”

“Have you never given yourself a bit of a tickle there?”

John stared at him with wide eyes incredulously, “Where?”

“Where the sun don’t shine,” Lestrade replied, keeping his voice low. “Come on! You’re a doctor, you must know how pleasurable it can be?”

“Yes. I…I know there’s nerve endings there and…and the…the prostate, but that doesn’t mean I want anything sticking up my arse,” John told him indignantly. “Especially a…a dick.”

Lestrade laughed deeply, “I’m not talking about sticking things anywhere…not at first anyway. Just a bit of a tickle,” he said before lifting his eyebrows suddenly in thought. “Why don’t you just tell Sherlock that you’d rather do him first? You know what to do, after all. You’ve probably stuck your fingers up loads of men’s arses, right?” 

John glared, “Why don’t you say that a bit louder, I’m not sure the two gentlemen in the back heard you.”

“Sorry,” Lestrade said, laughing again, “but, still, what I said holds some merit. You’re experienced in more than Sherlock is, right?”

“Apparently he’s done some sexual activities.”

“Yeah, with you,” Lestrade snorted. 

John clenched his jaw as he flushed, “No. Before me. He said he’s done some – In college or Uni.”

Lestrade looked sceptical but nodded with a light shrug, “Well, still, you know far more than he does. Give it to him first. See what he thinks.”

“I don’t know if I want to do that,” John told him, unsure of his thoughts on the matter. He tried to visualise what Lestrade was proposing, of pressing his fingers into Sherlock, stretching him slowly and gently, until he would be finally ready for John to steadily push himself inside. John shifted awkwardly on his chair at the thought, not completely certain if what he felt was arousal or aversion.

“You not done it with a woman before?” Lestrade asked him, looking very slightly surprised. “It’s good. Giving it to her, letting her give it to you—Although, some women aren’t usually that great at the thrusting. Not at first. They tend to need to practice. Whereas us blokes, we sort of know what we’re doing instinctively, don’t we? Women don’t need to do the same amount of motion in the hips that we do, so it takes a bit of time for them to get the right angles, the right speed, and the right force. – Gotta love a bit of force.”

John groaned and then chuckled tensely, “Can we please stop having this conversation? I really wish I’d kept my mouth shut now.”

“I would have figured it out,” Lestrade told him dismissively. “I’ve known something was up for a while – The way Sherlock was with you, looked at you, smiled at you. And you to him. The clues were just piling on up, John.”

“Hm. I suppose you would have interrogated me, if I hadn’t have said anything,” John huffed.

Lestrade grinned and tilted his head, “Not interrogate, precisely, but…yeah,” he said and softened his expression, reaching over to John with one hand on his arm, squeezing it briefly. “Do what I said. The writing it down thing. Try to distance yourself. Pretend you’re looking at a patient’s file or something. Turn an almost clinical and outsiders look at what you’ve written, and see what I see. – Then it’s up to you what you do with it. You and Sherlock. If Sherlock really isn’t interested in anything else but a bit of rough and tumble, and you want more, then you need to break it off, because, yeah, it’s a tad unhealthy and it’ll only make you and him more miserable. You’ll start putting up this wall, and pretending things are fine when they’re not—Are you positive you want more out of it though? Think about that as well. Because, from where I’m sitting, you have that already. It’s almost perfect, what you two have. You’re best friends, right? Best friends who sleep together. You both love one another and…I don’t know it seems to me like you’re already in a relationship together, it’s just that you either don’t see it or don’t want to acknowledge it yet. You don’t have to label it really, but you do need to make sure that he knows, and you know, that there is no one else. The best relationships always stem from a strong and amazing friendship, you know. Friends first, lovers later, it’s the best way to be I reckon.”

John pulled a dubious face but smiled and nodded, grateful when Lestrade shifted back in his seat and turned the conversation around to something new. John half listened to Lestrade talk for another hour or two before he said goodbye, thanked him, and made his way back to the flat. Lestrade’s idea was interesting, though John doubted if it would actually help. He was sure that he had tried to look at what he was doing with Sherlock from the outside before, he knew that he had definitely tried time and time again to understand what was happening, what he was thinking, and what Sherlock thought they were doing. However, John rummaged around for a spare piece of paper and a pen anyway, and sat at the desk in the living room, leaning over it with an odd and nervous twisting in his gut. He hesitated, staring at the blank paper with a throbbing focus, and then sighed, rubbed his face and glanced toward Sherlock’s closed bedroom door, before he began writing down each and every change and new development from the start of their “liaison,” to what they did in the alley several yards away from a crime scene. 

Whilst forcing himself to write and to contemplate and remember everything he noted, John began to realise that Lestrade might have had a point to it after all. Things didn’t exactly add up, not to how John thought they did or should, but things were taking shape. He could recall trying to rationalise and think through all of what had gone on between Sherlock and him, but each time he had done so, and each time he had come to what he thought was the right conclusion, Sherlock would say or do something that would tip everything back into chaos again. Writing them down on paper felt like being at the beginning again, with the written contract and Sherlock’s determined expression and thrumming body. He still wasn’t sure of his true feelings. He wasn’t sure if he was in love with Sherlock or merely loved the thought of him, the sexual aspect of him and what they did together. He knew he loved him as a friend, knew there was something more between them now, something more than perhaps even lust, but he couldn’t pinpoint it, couldn’t grasp it and label it. John couldn’t ever remember feeling the way he did for Sherlock for anyone else.

Was he in love with Sherlock? Did he love him in that way? Was he? Did he? The same questions kept spinning around and around in John’s head as he wrote.

John wasn’t sure how long he sat there writing nor how hard he stared at it afterwards, but by the time he had gone over everything for what felt like the thousandth time, Sherlock stepped into view beside him, as quiet as a cat, making John jump. 

“What are you doing?” Sherlock was wrapped in his bed sheet looking rumpled and dozy with sleep, but he frowned down at John with sharpening eyes and tilted his head, running one hand through his hair as he reached for the paper with the other. John scrambled to take it from him with a mumbled protest but Sherlock only frowned harder and deftly slipped it from his grasp, turning his back on John as he lifted it up to read. 

“Listen,” John started, though he was unsure what it was he had intended to say and straggled off into silence, watching Sherlock’s back as he went through the scrawling on the paper. Sherlock’s nape was visible from the bowed fold of the sheet, and John gazed at the bumps of his spine and the smoothness of his pale skin, wanting nothing more than to trail his fingertips over it and then up into the soft mussed curls gathered at the base of his head. He swallowed thickly and quickly looked down, his thoughts scattering and then gathering in relentless waves.

“John…” Sherlock muttered a few seconds later, lowering the paper. 

“I talked to Lestrade,” John said quickly, cutting off whatever Sherlock was going to say. “I told him about…us and he told me to look at everything from the outside. To…write it down and—He knew, Sherlock. Not completely, but he said that we’re…different and…and the graze on your head was just one of many clues that—”

Sherlock turned back around, looking unimpressed, “He didn’t know anything. He never does. That’s why he comes to me—You’re an idiot.”

John glared, “He suspected something. And…and God damn it Sherlock I had to tell someone. I needed to tell someone. I just needed someone on the outside looking in. – He…he said a lot of things and…although I value his opinion, I wasn’t entirely sure that what he said was, well, right, so he told me to write down everything that’s changed between us, and to look at it as he had looked at it, from a nonbiased sort of view. A kind of… separate view. Or at least try to do that.”

Sherlock scoffed and he glanced at the paper, looking tense, “And?”

“And,” John took a deep breath and stepped close to Sherlock, so close that he could smell his musk, feel the heat from his body. Sherlock’s pupils visibly widened at the movement. “I…um…I think he might have been right about some things …but I still…there’s doubt I suppose, and…fear? I don’t want to ruin our—”

“We’re fine how we are,” Sherlock interrupted curtly. “Nothing needs to change. Nothings needs to be labelled. We are just—”

“I love you,” John said loudly, surprising Sherlock into silence. “I…think it’s about time I said it too. Said it back to you. I don’t know if I have done…so…there. I’ve said it.” He motioned to the paper after two awkward minutes in which Sherlock stared at him. “Look, pretend that someone asked you to…deduce two people from their actions, and these are the documented actions of those people. Or it’s what witnesses saw or whatever…what would you deduce from all of this?”

Sherlock finally blinked but his brow furrowed, “What exactly did Lestrade say to you? Word for word.”

John sighed through his nose and wrenched the paper back, looking at it and then peering up at Sherlock, “Did you even read this? – Sherlock, you recently picked me over the “Work.” You…you say you…you love me. You think about me. You want to do…so many…many things with me! – I know you hate it when I try to talk to you about this, but it needs to be said. Even I hate bringing it up, you know I’m not exactly great at this stuff. I don’t find it easy to talk about all this with you, and it was definitely more than a little hard discussing all of this with Lestrade! But things are…things are changing, have changed, and I want to do…what’s right…”

“Which is what exactly?” Sherlock sneered.

“We’re more than just friends now, Sherlock,” John told him and grabbed Sherlock’s bare arm when he went to pull away, dragging him close and lifting the paper, shoving it into his face. “Look at this, what do you see? What do you deduce from it?”

Sherlock ripped it from his fingers, “Nothing!”

“Well I see something! I see it, Sherlock! I think I’ve always seen it…” John turned away and paced a moment, rubbing at his forehead and the bridge of his nose. “We can’t keep doing this, Sherlock. We can’t keep…ignoring and denying what is obviously happening between us.”

Sherlock scoffed, “John—”

“What are you afraid of?” John cut in. “Are you afraid of the same things as me? Of…losing one another? – Sherlock, if this carries on the way it is, we’ll do just that anyway. I can’t keep pushing away my thoughts and…and doubts and…fears. I can’t. And more importantly, you can’t. It’ll drive us both mad. It’ll…damage things more than anything else will. We’re adults, for crying out loud! We should be able to have an adult conversation. We are not teenagers. We’re not inexperienced in life and relationships. We’re not.”

“No,” Sherlock agreed. “We’re not. Which means we don’t have to demean ourselves by making up fictional and whimsical madness just because—”

“Tell me you’re not in love with me. Look at me and say it. Look at me and…say you have no romantic feelings for me whatsoever, and that you never will. That you don’t want any sort of commitment but the friendship and partnership we’ve always had. Say it,” John demanded, feeling suddenly sick to the stomach and overly emotional. “Tell me right now, Sherlock, that this won’t develop into something more. That you don’t want it to be anything more. That, instead, we’ll keep using one another for sexual release until one or both of us bore of it!”

Sherlock’s eyes flittered back and forth, searching John’s tightening face, “And if I do say all that. What then?”

“I’m going to have to stop this at some point,” John told him honestly. “And before you, start, I know, I know – I’ve said and done this a million times over by now and yet I always come back to you. I won’t this time, Sherlock. I…I think I want more than this in the future… with you. I think that I…that I want to label it, even if it’s just between us, I want to know that there is more to this than us just…getting off together—Lestrade said that we already seem to be in a relationship together. A proper one. We have it all, he said. We’re friends, we…we’re sexual partners now…it’s the perfect relationship. But, God, I don’t know if this makes me selfish or needy or what, but I need to know that we’re…whatever we are. I need to know what you feel about me and about this thing we’re doing. I need to know that you…want and…need me as much as I—”

“I don’t know how many times I’ve already said that I need you.”

“Not just to get off, Sherlock, I mean…in other ways.” John told him angrily, watching as Sherlock sighed and looked away, pursing his lips tightly and adjusting the sheet on his shoulders. John exhaled and tried a different approach. “If you tell me what you’re thinking and feeling, what your true thoughts and feelings are…this can be…sorted. I still don’t know if I’m…in…love with you, but I do know – and I’ve seen the evidence myself – that I don’t just see you as my friend anymore. You are…more…now. Obviously. And I want to know if it’s mutual. It seems like it is, from what I’ve seen, thought about, and written down, and from what you’ve done and said, but I really want to hear you say it…”

Sherlock exhaled sharply through his teeth, “I have nothing to say – Why must you make this more awkward and more complicated than it has to be?”

“Because it is awkward and complicated,” John retorted and reached out without full control, drifting his hands up Sherlock’s warm arms, across his shoulders, to cup his neck. “This will mean that it’ll just be me and you, Sherlock. Just us. No one else. I won’t go off with another woman, or another man, because I’ll…have…you. – So, you know, I can promise not to go off with anyone, and you can promise me the same, and if the time comes when we both, mutually, or maturely, think this thing has run it’s course, then we just…end it. We…we’ll still be friends. I don’t think I could be without you in my life, so, yeah, I would very much like and fight to keep our friendship no matter what happens.”

Sherlock glanced at him shrewdly, “You’re blackmailing me—”

“No…”

“So, you want me to lie to you, that’s what you want? You want me to tell you something just to shut you up and cater to your—”

John felt his chest clench, “Would you be lying if you said that this thing could grow to become more in the future? That you’ll want me for more than just a sodding orgasm? – Christ, Sherlock, is there nothing at all? It feels like there is and…just what are you afraid of? Seriously?”

Sherlock didn’t respond and John glowered but took some time to compose himself, staring into Sherlock’s face and absentmindedly stroking his thumbs along Sherlock’s jawline, “Fine. How about I give you some time to think it over? A few weeks or something. Get your head around what I’m asking, what I’m saying, and then come to me with an answer. A true and real answer – In the mean time…we can still do what we’ve been doing. In fact, I, um, I’ve also been thinking about…certain things, and I might want to…” rapidly changing the subject completely, he cleared his throat with a nervous twitch of his eye and clenched his jaw when Sherlock focused more intently on him. “I might want to do that thing. You know, the, uh, the…thing you bring up all the sodding time. The…the, uh, the sex? – I might want to…but I think I should do it to you…first…I’m the more experienced and I might be more inclined and more comfortable to do it to you first, before I think about letting you do it to me…”

Sherlock’s expression of pure confusion stuttered and then cleared, “You want to penetrate me?”

“Yes. No. Possibly,” John said in a rush, glaring with a whine of defeat. “I don’t know!”

“How have we gone from you asking me if I’m in love with you, wanting to label what we have – if only for your peace of mind – to you now asking me if I’d bend over for you?”

John blushed, “Are you being deliberately crude?”

“Yes.”

“I’m just…saying…”

Sherlock tilted his head, “Why? Think that’ll change my mind? If anything it puts me off!”

“All I’m saying…is that I’d prefer if—”

“Lestrade told you to do this, didn’t he?” Sherlock correctly deduced with a look of exasperation. “What. Did. He. Say?”

“I’m not telling you everything he said, Sherlock – I don’t think I could even if I wanted to! He said…a lot, let’s just leave it at that,” John sighed and let Sherlock go. “Think it over anyway. Everything. The, um, the relationship thing and the sex thing. Think it over. Do a table or a chart or…whatever you want. Just let me know where I stand, where we stand.”

Sherlock didn’t respond but he watched as John stepped away with a narrowed, strained, and overly frustrated expression. John paused, stepped back, and cradled Sherlock’s face to kiss him softly with a sudden deluge of emotion, wondering if what he was doing was for himself or for Sherlock. He felt drained and slightly despondent, seeing nothing but misery in their future. Sherlock returned the kiss, his brow furrowed, and John smiled at him tightly and then patted his cheek, glad when Sherlock’s comically affronted and annoyed expression eased some of the tension in the air between them. Laughing, John pinched his cheek as well and then strolled off, trying to ignore the hard lump of anxiousness in the pit of his stomach and the need to take everything back. He knew that he would have to force himself to end what was between them properly if Sherlock responded negatively and told John that he wanted nothing more, and never would. It would be difficult, because as John had already pointed out, he always gave in and went back, and forgave Sherlock, and had done so time and time again. He had done it because he had wanted to, because he didn’t really want things to stop, but for his own sanity and emotional stability, he would have to. A part of him, one that wasn’t submerged in dread, pondered if it was all worth it, and scoffed at the theatrics of it all. Why couldn’t John just be happy with the way things were? Why did he have to keep questioning and pushing and grasping at things? Why did he have to ruin things? Anyone else, who was given the opportunity to have sexual relations without any strings, would have gladly scoped it up without question. Wouldn’t they?

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback fuels me!
> 
> [Gem's Tumblr](http://gem-gem-bites.tumblr.com/)


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